Africa

In a few weeks I will be heading to Kenya, Africa to join the CMMB, the Catholic Medical Mission Board, on how they minister to the medical needs of so many in so much need in what we call the third world. A half-hour program will result.

I wish we had never coined the phrase, "the third world." We may think we are separate in beingness of human, but we are not. We are separated by distance, culture, language, beliefs and by "stuff," but we cannot be separated by being. Whether we know it, or like it, or accept it, it matters not. We are one spiritually.

My friend, philosopher, metaphysician, composer, musician, author, and teacher Dr. Kenneth George Mills once said, (and I will paraphrase and trust I do him justice): When the Bible refers that all must return to the Father it means that the Father is the symbol of the "ONE." We all return eventually to the ONE, to the unity of being for we are all divine emanations of the sacred creative thought of being.

But back to my upcoming trip to Africa. I've been reading as much as I can on African history as well as its hopes and wishes for the future.

These days nobody is paying much attention to Africa and its many country troubles because we’ve got far more local issues with which to deal: the mid-term election, the economy and all of its problems.

All over Africa there are tribal histories of conflict and they continue. All over and more so in some of the burgeoning African countries there are political rivalries for power.

In the Congo there is ongoing trouble. People are being killed and displaced because of insurgent and rebel actions. The Congo you say, what’s that got to do with me? In subtle ways it has a lot to do with each of us.

We are a planet of divergent tribes on convergent paths. We meet in symbolic counsel every once in awhile at the United Nations in New York and try to work it out.

Part of the problem seems to be when we are not together trying to find pathways to the greater good, we seem to forget our humanitarian and spiritual connection and that we have the power to stop indiscriminate killing, ethnic cleansing, genocide and religious degradation. Never forget we have the individual and collective power to say “NO!”

There is a way to remember we are all part of each other. The next time you enjoy a candy bar think of this.

The chocolate may have come from Ghana, the peanuts from the Sudan, the corn syrup from Iowa, the sugar from Ecuador, the butter from Australia, the paper from Canada, the ink for printing from the Congo, the fruit from Israel, and if the candy bar is wrapped in tin foil, it probably came from Thailand and if it has coconut, it probably came from the Philippines.

Add to this all the people it took to bring those products to market for export, and you have millions of people all over the world who have in some way contributed to your enjoyment of a simple candy bar.

Simple people in the Congo, family people who only want to live in peace and raise their families, are being murdered. They are forced to leave their homes in an indiscriminate disruption that warring factions have constructed and we and the rest of the world are too busy with our troubles to pay attention.

I often wonder how much shame our karma can endure before…

You can fill in the ending.