Individuals who get stuck in an information processing mode have a maladaptive mindset characterized by reality distortion through denial of information, an inability to deal with ambiguity, a tendancy to view and treat others as mere tools, and a profound lack of empathy.
– Oliver Schultheiss, psychologist and neuroscientist
The unwanting soul sees what’s hidden, and the ever-wanting soul sees only what it wants.
– Tao Te Ching, translation by Ursula Le Guin
Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.
– Jesus, in the Gospel of Luke
Pity the Dominos
Pity those dominos
of the great Dawny Trutin
They think they are smart
but they’re really just tootin
Becoming quite lost
as reality goes
but worse is the damage
they do to their souls
They fail to affirm
God’s spirit in others
and don’t seem to know
they are sisters and brothers
Where did they lose
the sense to tell right from wrong?
thinking they’re righteous
when they sing Trutin’s song
He strenthens their hubris
Their words come in to view
But it’s not just some other them
It really could be you
Do you terrorize the refugees
lying that they eat pets?
What will it take to rein you in
and make you have regrets?
Your language only makes lies
since MAGA bought and sold you
You follow Dawny Trutin
he really has controlled you
Have you forgotten
the Doctrine of Discovery
the centuries of slavery
the lynchings of Jim Crow
and postcards of the hanging
the bigotry that Nothings Know
the Trail of Tears and Wounded Knee
and horror of the Holocaust
that you deny you see?
How can we now be reconciled
when you deny these things?
promoting more such evils
is what this worldview brings
You think religious and gun rights
allow the truth to be outsourced
but human hearts and moral truths
can never be divorced
Dominating others
has come before to call
Don’t think it makes you special
You’re human after all
There is some good in what you know
but mostly that’s a shield
you use to block your victims’ views
and thus hide what is real
Other hearts beat to God’s rhythms
but you don’t know their names
They’re black and brown and gay and trans
They’re girl and boy and old like me
They’re Muslim, Jew, homeless, and refugee
They don’t have guns or seek to dominate
Yet they’re wounded by your pridefulness,
sated by your scorn, and injured by your hate
They feel your callous contempt and your visible disdain
Enough of your false equivalence and of your willful ignorance
Go ahead and ride your cowboy trumpery and fearful certainties
Will you be saved by your ideological hysteria?
Do you expect to find redemption in your junk religion?
At times we humans all can feel
the need to grow our dominion
well beyond its rightful place
abandoning the Spirit
to enlarge our private space
So you might try being thankful
when you lie on your death bed
for gifts received and given
within the life you’ve led
So in the end I hope you find
the peace you truly need.
I know within the hardest heart
our God has left a seed.
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