Clear Path to Peace

I am inspired by Australia’s foray into the mostly uncharted waters of national apology. This week, Kevin Rudd, prime minister of Australia, apologized to the indigenous Aborigine tribe for the horrors done to them through racism in the name of “progress”. In particular, he mentioned the Stolen Generation, referring to the estimated 10-30% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were taken from their parents to be raised and educated in white households, from 1910 until 1970. (partial text of Rudd’s speech is below).

As an American, I’m reminded once again of the massive denial that lives in our national psyche in the areas where apology has not yet been made. The Native American tribes of this land suffered full scale genocide at the hands of pioneering settlers and the US government. Healing between the tribes and the white majority here has not yet occurred. Sorry – on a national scale – has not yet been said.

The other wound that comes immediately to mind is the pain of the African people who were brought to this land against their will to be sold into slavery. No one has heard the word “sorry” about that tragedy from a President of the United States, that I know of. Please correct me if I’m wrong about this. I’d love to be wrong about it.

I think Australia is showing us the way….and like some people in Australia, some Americans are hesitant to open the door to “sorry” because it will also open the door to compensation. Yet an apology means nothing if there isn’t action to back it up. No one cares about words if they are just words, and nothing else. The Golden Rule reminds us – let us treat others in a way that we would like to be treated. Compensation in many forms, including educational, medical and employment support, is justice in action. It brings meaning to the words of apology and makes them real. Let’s not be afraid of this; rather, let’s say Yes to healing on every level of our national and global society.

We must make our inner healing real if we are going to be in any kind of shape to heal the Earth…together.

Partial text of Rudd’s Sorry Speech

Wednesday February 13, 2008

“Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

We reflect on their past mistreatment.

We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations – this blemished chapter in our nation’s history.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.

For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.

A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.

A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.

A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.

A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.”

There comes a time in the history of nations when their peoples must become fully reconciled to their past if they are to go forward with confidence to embrace their future.”

Later, Rudd states, “We are…wrestling with our own soul…it is just the truth: the cold, confronting, uncomfortable truth – facing it, dealing with it, moving on from it…

I know that, in offering this apology on behalf of the government and the parliament, there is nothing I can say today that can take away the pain you have suffered personally.

Whatever words I speak today, I cannot undo that.

Words alone are not that powerful; grief is a very personal thing.

I ask those non-indigenous Australians listening today who may not fully understand why what we are doing is so important to imagine for a moment that this had happened to you…

…Our challenge for the future is…to embrace a new partnership between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians – to embrace, as part of that partnership, expanded Link-up and other critical services to help the stolen generations to trace their families if at all possible and to provide dignity to their lives.

But the core of this partnership for the future is to close the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians on life expectancy, educational achievement and employment opportunities.

This new partnership on closing the gap will set concrete targets for the future: within a decade to halve the widening gap in literacy, numeracy and employment outcomes and opportunities for indigenous Australians, within a decade to halve the appalling gap in infant mortality rates between indigenous and non-indigenous children and, within a generation, to close the equally appalling 17-year life gap between indigenous and non-indigenous in overall life expectancy…

…Let us take it with both hands and allow this day, this day of national reconciliation, to become one of those rare moments in which we might just be able to transform the way in which the nation thinks about itself, whereby the injustice administered to the stolen generations in the name of these, our parliaments, causes all of us to reappraise, at the deepest level of our beliefs, the real possibility of reconciliation writ large: reconciliation across all indigenous Australia; reconciliation across the entire history of the often bloody encounter between those who emerged from the Dreamtime a thousand generations ago and those who, like me, came across the seas only yesterday; reconciliation which opens up whole new possibilities for the future.”

Full text:http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/kevin-rudds-sorry-speech/2008/02/13/1202760379056.html

There are so many religions and philosophies – a whole world to choose from.

The Tibetan Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, famously said, “My religion is kindness.” For me, my religion is forgiveness.

Forgiveness is saturated with kindness. It also welcomes deep honesty and a compassionate look at the difficulties we create together in this life. Focusing past pain and trauma, we forgive anyway. Why? To directly experience peace and freedom.

Forgiveness is the ultimate energetic transmission of soul friendship – both with ourselves and with our brothers and sisters throughout the world.

As I’ve explored in earlier posts, what I mean by “forgiveness” is not traditional forgiveness, which assumes there is a victim forgiving a perpetrator because a sin was committed. Instead, it is the forgiveness that is expertly and exhaustively delineated in A Course In Miracles, and also offered in Colin Tipping’s work of Radical Forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the voluntary realization that on the level of truth, no sin was ever committed Inside this constant Reality, we are ALL equal, eternal and wise beings made of light, and nothing wrong ever happened.

(This is not to say that there aren’t earthly consequences for committing violence – there are, and there need to be. The pain of violence can be healed for everyone involved, including the offering of community support, education and compassion. Having worked in prisons, I understand that we can’t skip these steps. All levels need to be included here.)

With forgiveness, we release the emotional constriction of guilt and shame that goes along with any attack…both our own and others’.

This is why forgiveness may be seen as a spiritual path. Every time I forgive, I realize the edges are friendly, and all my misery is self-created (no matter what it looks like). I open up to conscious awareness of my eternal nature as divine love.

With each act of forgiveness, I rise in love – shedding fear and the mistaken perception of being separate from my world and my human family.

I’ve noticed that when I forgive, I’m much more intimate with this moment. It’s like I’m molting a layer of skin, and everything feels fresh and new. I’m literally taking off the veils….doing a lovely strip tease and getting naked before God, and before myself, and before the whole of creation.

This is a very juicy spiritual path. It’s the only path I want …full of revelation, release, healing and inspiration. How about you? Are you kind and juicy…kinda juicy?