[NOTE: I wrote this essay in 2004, when I lived in Sacramento a few blocks from the state Capital building.]
Democrats and Republicans; bless them all. Libertarians, Peace and Freedom, Reformers, and Greeners; bless them all. Natural “Lawyers,” Light Party and Veterans Party, bless them all. If you’ve ever taken a few minutes to look at the vast spectrum of ideological positioning embraced by our political parties, your first realization is that it won’t take a few minutes. There is a long list of political parties and groups (see www.politics1.com/parties.htm). Each has its own ideology, some of which will be more “comfortable” to the reader than others. However, after spending some time doing just that, I’ve come up with my own “bottom line:” bless them all.
Thinking of Republicans, some Democrats will likely have a problem with that idea, much less with the idea of blessing members of the American Independence, American Nazi Party, the Southern Party, the Christian Falangist Party of America, or the Knights (KKK) Party. The idea of blessing Democrats would be problem enough for some Republicans, much less blessing members of the Grassroots Party, Socialist Party USA, Communist Party USA, and so on. However, “bless them all” means, bless them all.
The subject isn’t limited to politics. We could be talking about religion, extending blessings to Christians and Jews, or to Muslims and Atheists. We could be talking about “straights” or gays, or drug pushers or junkies. That guy down the street with the meth lab and the Chairman of Pfizer Pharmaceutical or GlaxoSmithKline are both drug manufacturers. The Army captain and the gangbanger both expect their privates and corporals to follow orders to kill “the enemy” on their respective battlegrounds. Both think that their causes make them “right.”
Bless them all.
Blessings to the entire spectrum of the human family, each with its own ideology. Some will be more “comfortable” than others. Let us be reminded that “lines of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ drawn in the sands of time” quickly blur and reshuffle when the winds of reality begin blowing or change direction.
Blessing those who hold views that are profoundly different from our own sounds impractical to most people, if not downright dumb. If we embrace a view that we’ve deemed is “right” to our way of thinking/believing, anyone who thinks/believes differently on the matter must be “wrong,” or perhaps unenlightened. Since we tend to see ourselves as being “good” (even if a little “scorched”), then our “right” view must also be good. Any “wrong” view must therefore, be “evil,” or perhaps its cousin, ignorant. Yet, if we can see our way to bless people who hold different, even threatening views to our own, we will discover that they become less threatening to us.
There are legions of God-fearing people who wouldn’t “bless” the late Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, or the late Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay for all the pots of gold at the end of a thousand rainbows. There are legions of God-loving and God-ambivalent people who wouldn’t bless the Bush administration for its massively destructive, terrorism-threat-escalating, and expensive search for phantoms of mass destruction in Iraq. But it is best to bless them all.
We may not agree with how some people think. We may not like what some people do. We may even fear what they have done, what they do, or might do. But it is best to wish them well and bless them all.
An old adage says, “What goes around, comes around.” In other words, what we send out will return to us in kind. Another adage admonishes us to beware of what we wish for, because we may receive it.
The word “beware” could be interpreted to mean, “be wary,” or on guard and cautious. However, it can also mean, be aware, or alert and conscious. When we are conscious of the quality, constancy, and power of our thoughts, and that we can be likened to great transmitters that send thought impulses around the world to other human receivers (and transmitters), then it is very important to be mindful of what we’re sending out, for it will return to us, since we are “receivers” too. If I’m going to send thoughts out, even to someone that I think may be the embodiment of evil ideas, then I’m going to send something that can potentiate the good within them. The choice to exercise it always remains with them, but my choice to send blessings nonetheless potentiates a “good” return to me.
It is actually not important whether the blessings we send out are returned from those we send them to. In every language and in every tongue, blessings are positive, powerful, and good. Ultimately, they will always, unerringly return to us, as gifts to ourselves. As such, it is curious why we are quick to curse, and slow to bless. And even when we do offer blessings, they so often come with strings. What better group to practice sending blessings to, than those who stand outside our own social, political, and behavioral matrix? So curse no more. Bless. And whether you agree with this hair brained idea or not, blessings to you.
Copyright © 2004-2007 Adam Abraham All rights reserved
