Editor’s Note: Doug Milholland wrote this meditation that he will read in front of the gate leading into the U.S. Navy’s Weapons Transfer Depot on Indian Island during a Quaker style Father’s Day gathering on Sunday, June 19th. Click here to read the original document with footnotes.
Tipping Point – A Father’s Day Meditation
Douglas Milholland 6/15/2022
Martin Luther King, Gandhi, led people to freedom,
enjoining non-violent fearless hearts, doing the impossible –
Being Peace, connecting with the Innate Worth of all concerned,
inviting “the Better Angels of our Nature” to dwell amongst us,
helping us mature from power over others, what’s in it for me?,
to mutually assured thriving, how can I help?
Can we come together in the Planetary Emergency of Now,
busy ourselves making a post carbon world that works for All?
Being the change that must occur If our descendants are to live
requires owning our National Shadow: “poverty, racism, militarism,”
Injecting “poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of normally humane people”
In his last year of life MLK knew the tools needed to tackle racism:
“Dispensation of equitable incomes, real policing reforms,
addressing judicial and jury compositions and biases,
massive incarcerations, housing, education; in short,
issues that are indicators of real, not cosmetic change and progress.”
He also knew the national will do so was a casualty of Vietnam.
Our country, so in love with GUNS R US,
from Iraqistan & Ukraine,
to Uvalde, Buffalo, Philly, Charleston, Phoenix, San Bernardino, Chicago:
Copycat kids, sick with hatred and despair killing it up like in the action movies –
250 mass shootings by June this year and counting.
Look into the greatsoul’s mirror, where our compliant selves,
our quiet yesses, our silent no’s, look back at us,
as do millions killed, starving, refugees, collateral damage,
contaminated lands, waters, the stink of fear, burst bodies in the sun.
It’s so bipartisan injecting trillion$ seeking Full Spectrum Dominance,
Endless wars, poisoning the Well of Being we all draw from,
setting the killing pace of global military spending.
The dopesick interlocking crypto-klepto-corpora-tocracy
controlling damn near everything bought, sold or pushed,
demanding global supremacy, threatening extinction,
busy ripping up the fabric of existence.
President Eisenhower warned us: “This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense.
Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
It’s up to us, this generation, to rally, pledge our sacred honor
shall have a new birth of freedom
and that government of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth”
A new birth of freedom:
growing good will, friendship, community,
working together, being truthful, fair, open hearted,
battling the growing climate catastrophe “as if our house is on fire!”,
Shrinking our use of coal, oil, natural gas. Building efficient mass transportation,
Parking the petros, joining the electric vehicle revolution, planting community gardens,
no more Chernobyls, Fuukushimas: Solar, geothermal, wind not nuclear
Sending Trump’s cabal to prison, ending corporate “personhood,”
Repairing the Supreme Court, Dismantling systemic racism,
Passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, Women’s Right to Choose,
Green Jobs, Build Back Better, public housing,
Medicare for all, fighting Covid worldwide,
Helping those suffering in the lucrative opioids plague,
those ill from chosen people-ism,
Joining the UN Treaty banning Nuclear Weapons and the World Court,
Cleaning up battlefields, Disassembling weapons
Ending the next war before it starts,
Learning how to Live in Peace
Our grandchildren need a living world, full of bees and birds,
not one broiled by global warming, or frozen in nuclear winter.
Don’t despair. Let’s learn to understand the anatomy of trauma,
wars limitations, the power of waging peace.
Using the skills and frameworks
needed to create a more peaceful and just world,
we can create this world together with fierce urgency.
Many hands are needed to help repair Little Blue Top,
spinning through the Milky Way, our only home.
We have a choice to do the right thing, me and you.
I’m clear what’s mine to do.
Listen to the light within – what right thing is choosing you?
