[Oe List ...] Fwd: OpEd Monday

[Herman Greene]

Thanks Jaime.

 

There is one more 11, 26/11 (2008), the date of the beginning of the Mumbai
attacks.

 

  _____  

From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of Jaime R Vergara
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2012 8:17 PM
To: oe at wedgeblade.net
Subject: [Oe List ...] Fwd: OpEd Monday

 

Just a thought.

j'aime la vie

 

-----Original Message-----
From: jrvergarajr2031 <jrvergarajr2031 at aol.com>
To: editor <editor at saipantribune.com>; Mark_Rabago
<Mark_Rabago at saipantribune.com>; jayvee_vallejera
<jayvee_vallejera at saipantribune.com>
Sent: Sun, Mar 11, 2012 9:07 am
Subject: OpEd Monday

3.11.11

 

For those whose lives experienced a shaking of the foundations by the events
now associated with the numerical metaphor 9/11, the nation of Japan, in
various degrees of intense challenge and trappings of despair, have 3/11 as
their own symbol of the literal terrestrial tremor and immense inundation
that visited the northeastern shores of the island of Honshu.  The
earth-shaking occurrence that made "Miyaki" and "Fukushima" household terms
has come to a year's turn testifying to the awe and wonder of human
resilience that continues to see a people bear their suffering sans rancor,
and proceed with the many miracles of disciplined resolves without much
taint of arrogance nor conceit.

 

Volunteers trained to dive the cold waters of the North Pacific in order to
locate those still missing so that bodies, if still recoverable, or, at
least, identifiable, be given to relatives to relieve battered minds and
console forsaken souls; they scour the ocean floor on this anniversary day
to give the culture's vaunted communal effort one more try.  The symbolic
power of the attempt after all, carries a stronger punch on the human spirit
than whatever tangible accomplishment it may gain.

 

Various degrees and forms of 9/11s and 3/11s have come to shake the
corporate and individual foundations of our lives of late.   A whole economy
like that of Greece teeters at the brink of wholesale collapse even as those
who hold the purse strings in staid buildings of France, Germany and the
Benelux readjust the numbers in their books to see if the financial
processes at play can proceed.  The Greeks see a decade long belt tightening
before they can see the light at the end of a long tunnel.  Others in the
Eurozone cower in fear that their banking systems are next in line.

 

The drumbeats of war are getting stronger as Gringos' machismo reflexively
wants to lash at those it perceive to threaten its comfort zone stated as
aggression.  Syria's backyard is reportedly stained with the blood of kin in
civil discord, while Cairo's youth and Gaza's refugees wrap their fists
around many stones.  Israel brags about keeping the option to go
'unilateral' and those opposing Obama's diplomatic efforts are easy on the
language preemptive offense.

 

The implications of the Japan disasters on the reality of climate change,
the sudden hyperactivity of the tectonic plates and air/ocean currents
showing unusual patterns, along with the continuing specter of the nuclear
card going rogue or awry, matters than can no longer just be ignored and are
in fact still resolvable with our current state of knowledge, are laid on
the tables of our rational considerations, and we tremble at the prospects
of head of States going 'postal' (with apologies to the USPS) on narrow and
less than global context.

 

As our sense of the global challenges have grown more acute, the alarming
turn of our individual destinies into the dark shadows of fear and
suspicion, on one hand, and the hellish reality of corruption and violence,
on the other, has brought the realities of 9/11 and 3/11s to roost at the
doorsteps of our homes, if not into the inner sanctums of where we lay our
head to sleep in the night.  That, or our media's choice of reporting the
news is too heavily leaning on the side of human depravity. And ignoring the
reality of our situation has sent us all flying to the momentary comfort of
many forms of lala-land, failing to see that at the root of the malaise of
our time lies the crisis of nothing less than the cowering shrinkage of the
human spirit itself.

 

Less one thinks I have gone soft on the head, I am not referring to some
element here foreign to the common eye, or only the province we officially
parcel to the parson and the priest, the rabbi and the imam, the guru and
the shaman. I am pointing to that wonderful discovery of consciousness that
is the gift of our century and generation, the capacity to transcend our
moment while at the same time, being totally and immanently immersed in
every aspect of it.  Then, while standing on the comprehensive with the
longest view for a context, be minutely sensitive to every vibration every
moment and every square inch in the arena of living engagement, knowing that
were the shadows of death abounds, the drive for life abounds much more.

 

Or, at least, that objectively remains an option for each of us, for while
we constantly rehearse the perceived causes that brought us to where we are,
often accompanied by a blame game on our reflections of CNMI's past, and
anticipate with much foreboding and doom fare the chances that lie on our
path beyond, it is the choices that we make each day that constitutes the
final stroke determining the course of our existence.

 

Nippongos, for all the gory and glory of their past, manage to keep their
chin up in a deep sense of self-respect and self-confidence, and by many
accounts turn calamities into a limbering of futuric resolves, and while
many a year later today still reside in makeshift shelters overlooking the
empty spaces left behind by their devastated homes, life flows on like udon
on a bowl of seaweed-flavored and jasmine-scented soba, as the land of the
rising sun continues to greet a harried world, Ohayoo Gozaimasu!

 

So, how are we faring with our choices today?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  <http://presence.mail.aol.com/mailsig/?sn=jrvergarajr2031>  Jaime R
Vergara 

 

All of yesterday, thanks; all of tomorrow, yes; all of today, let it be!

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