Editor,
The word live spelled backwards becomes evil. When we turn our backs on life in all its myriad forms, we invite evil into our lives. In our country money has become our god, the god of prosperity. This god does not celebrate diversity; quite the contrary, it seeks to celebrate only wealth, greed, power, and control.
You can see this in the eyes of our president and his cabinet appointees and advisors, and the GOP. They stare back at us with eyes whose empty sockets reflect hate and fear, greed for power and money – all indications of that which the Buddhists call the Hungry Ghost realm, the land of cravings that can never be satisfied – the wasteland of life-destroying sameness and the cold, non-affirming lust for object possession, the land of evil.
Here is where we see the marginalization, discrimination and torture of anyone who is not white and male, anyone who is not heterosexual and healthy, anyone who is not a fundamentalist Christian. Here is where we see the rape and pillage of our beloved planet and the cruelty exacted towards our four legged brothers and sisters. Here is where we see the poor and vulnerable tossed out like so many pieces of garbage.
We must resist; we must open ourselves to diversity both within and without. We must recognize our need to achieve success at the expense of all else. We must name this god we have created. We must acknowledge the evil within so that we may recognize it without and resist its attempts to destroy us.
Kathy Martone Ed.D.