JINGLE BELLS AND PALESTINE Balancing Your Love and Your Politics

Balancing Your Love and Your Politics

There Is No Intellectual Answer

Jim and Carol Taiclot and their two children celebrate Christmas. They love Christmas. They are Christians. They love their neighbours. They do unto others as they would have them do unto themselves. Jim is the CEO of the prominent arms manufacturers, Blockhead Martian. Jim is particularly proud of their new seventeen million dollar hypersonics lab at Hauntsville, Alabama. “Did you know, Carol, that hypersonic weapons are capable of travelling at five times the speed of sound?” Jim asks his beloved wife. “OMG” his beloved wife replies, “and the speed of sound is already so fast!”

Christmas with the Taiclots is a joy. It is a time to remember those they love, those they cherish – those friends and family with whom they share the sacred journey of life. Along with the many Christmas cards the Taiclots receive there is a lot of hate mail. I wonder why?! Could hypocrisy be caricatured more vividly? And yet, and yet... How far removed are you and I from Jim and Carol?

Do you and I refuse our Christmas prezzies, or march in protest up and down in front of the naive and oblivious Christians singing sweet psalms on street corners - while our brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts and children and grandparents - in Palestine, and the Ukraine, and Sudan, and - and - and – all suffer unimaginably?

And if we do join the (basically) superficial and sentimental celebrations - is that OK? Is it OK to sing and smile while others suffer what we would absolutely not, ever, like done unto us?

Is there a way to stand in solidarity with The One Heart that beats in every human chest – and not be stricken to our core, overwhelmed, broken, and unable to function? Is it possible to experience Universal Love, and bear the unbearable pain, and know joy – at the same time?

These are questions many, many sincere and empathic people ask – especially at this time of the year. But - in my opinion - they won´t find the answers they seek in discussion or debate. The only way to know if Universal Love is oceanic enough to hold the horrors of bombings and starvation, dead teenagers in soldier uniforms, and sociopathic politicians – and at the same time, humanity´s infinite daily kindnesses and generosities and acts of selflessness, and the skeletal beauty of midwinter, and feel gratitude for the miracle of existence itself – is to experience Universal Love.

How big is Universal Love? How much can it hold? How many contradictions? We won´t know until we experience it. So the question, I believe, is not whether we should or shouldn´t be happy while others in The Human Family are being murdered and tortured. (Although I honour those of us, young and old, who ask this question.) The question, I believe, is how do we come to know Universal Love? How do we experience Universal Love directly, personally? Only then we will have our answers.

The Experiential Answer

I won´t waste your time with intellectual concepts. Of course Universal Love is not sex. Of course it is not co-dependence or romance. It is not even love for “my” people, my tribe, my culture, my land. (Although all such relationships contain, perhaps, its seed.) By definition, if it is universal, then it is love for everyone. But is that even possible? Don´t those parsimonious, holy people who preach Love For All make us all sick? Don´t they also stink of hypocrisy – of denial and artificiality? Yes, they do! (Well – I´ll speak for myself: they make me sick!) But that, I believe, is because they are pretenders. The path to Universal Love is not within our control. There are no right rituals to do, or codes to obey, or disciplines to follow.

Nevertheless, in my opinion, there are definite, recognisable components to the Path of Universal Love – of which I would like to name the four I consider the most fundamental... Four areas to which we need to give our attention, if we are to have any hope at all of arriving at the experience. These are:

(1) Our hearts need to soften and let go - and humbly, honestly admit that we do not fully know The Absolute Truth.*

(2) Our hearts need to soften and open to our belonging to the Great Absolute Truth we don´t understand. (Whatever this existence is, we are part of it - who can deny that?!)

(3) Then each of us needs to learn to look upon themselves - with tender, kind acceptance – and recognise “I am a unique expression of the Great Absolute Truth to which we all belong, and that none of us fully understand”. **

(4) And from there it is only a small step to feel that everyone else (and every other living creature, fot that matter) is also a unique expression of The Great Absolute Truth, The Great Everything, The Great Mystery beyond our capacity to define.

Will the cultivation of these four aspects of the path guarantee the success of our journey into Universal Love? Yes, perhaps. I do not know. As I said, as I see it – the Path of Universal Love is not within our control. Jesus famously taught “knock and the doors will be opened” - a phrase that suggests the presence of something beyond our control (that which does the opening). The Sufi mystic and poet Rumi taught that it is the sincerity of our longing to which The Great Mystery responds. All I can say is that now, in my seventies, after a lifetime of pilgrimage, I believe these four factors are a kind of compass. They continue to guide me, and the people I guide. And yes. I feel our hearts softening and opening, together.

So What Now?

There is a popular prayer “"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." There is perhaps a wisdom in adhering to such a discrimination – after all, until we know Universal Love, at least to some degree – we need to know how much of others´ suffering we can shoulder. If we break under the burden of a psychic weight we cannot carry – then what use are we going to be to anyone? So take some time off for Christmas - yes! Let togetherness soothe you. Look deeply into the eyes of the people in your life. See them in their uniqueness. Let them appreciate you. Enjoy!

And, at the same time (let me be blunt): know that we do not know what we can and cannot change. We do not know – you do not know, I do not know, nobody knows. But – if we choose the Path of Universal Love, and Universal Love expands within us - our sense of what we can and cannot change will evolve. We will start to feel our equality, our equality with everyone – not a sociological equality, but an existential equality. We will start to feel how we are all unique - and all the same. Our hearts will be blown open by the tragedy and the beauty of the whole show of Life on Earth. Our vision will expand. Living in our uniqueness, we will find we are contributing uniquely. And our politics will be infused with passion and clarity.

* Or, therefore, the full Absolute Truth about any given situation. ** Each of us perceiving their own, unique, limited reality.

*

Mark Josephs,

"Mark the Mystic Activist",

Aragon, Spain,

Winter 2025

"I feel The Conscious Tribes Movement carries something beautiful,

 profound, powerful and important.

I try to convey this in my articles, stories and poetry."

www.tribusconscientes.com

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