GROUND ZER0, New York, N.Y.--Mar. 31, 2004 -- Steve is my buddy.  He died thirteen years ago on this date.    But, he's come back to life.
       In a way, he is the "walking dead."   Anyone who has died and come to life again understands what I mean.   

      I've died and been reborn a number of times.   Most of us, if we think about it, have.
      In Vietnam guys got killed all around me but I lived.   Why?  Why didn't I die?
      A few years ago I had colon cancer and am still alive and kicking.   Why?  Why am I alive.
      I was at Ground Zero when the Terrorists attacked and survived while others around me died.  Why didn't I die?
      Near death accidents or events, brushes with the Grim Reaper, force us all to take inventory about life.   If we have felt the icy hand of Death on our shoulder, we enter a different zone.   We learn how to celebrate life after death.
      My friend Steve was being killed by booze thirteen years.  His soul was dead, and his body hung on by a thread.    He clutched at the straws of sobriety and they turned into strong life lines that have buoyed him back to life and helped him carve a useful and dedicated life out of a morass of emotional Terror.
       We forget, I think, how valuable life is unless we have walked into the jaws of Death. 

       In Vietnam, for example, a mine exploded in front of my patrol and everyone to my left and right were killed or mortally wounded except for me.   I wasn't scratched.
       In another event, the V.C. caught us in a three-way ambush and I helped drag wounded buddies to the top of a hill, bullets snapping and popping everywhere but missing me each time, as though I was destined to see life's value through Death's mask.

      At the World Trade Center I watched people leap from the burning Twin Towers and sucked in a deep breath, a reminder that I was Life versus the Death they were manifesting.
      Sometimes, I make an eye blink as a reminder of Life's value over Death.   I'll count them, just to focus on the difference between light and darkness.   The same is true of my heartbeats.   Sometimes I'll take my own pulse.  It requires focus and shutting out the outside world, but if one concentrates he or she can hear the sound of their heart pumping.
      Then there are breaths.   The average is sixteen per minute.  Inhale.  Exhale.  Inhale.  Exhale. 
       Dead people don't breathe.
       I'll try and hold my breath as long as I can.  The urge to breathe, the urge to live, dominates the mind and body.   I am forced to inhale.  My body demands life even though I am consciously trying to hold my breath.
       All this comes to one ultimate offering--that Life is more valuable than Death.   In Life we have the opportunity to do something we cannot do when we are dead.    We can sweep the road to the future for the Children's Children's Children.  We can pave the potholes, put up warning signs at dangerous curves, install stoplights at busy intersections, and provide roadmaps that guide the lost back on to the straight and narrow.

       There is little reason to live just for ourselves.    To do so leads us into selfish shells of slavish indulgences that sate nothing but our insatiable appetites.   No one can eat enough ice cream, have enough money, be pretty or handsome enough, liked enough, loved enough, wanted enough.    It is the nature of our selfishness to be like a Dark Hole, endlessly seeking more and more until the ground around us is barren, until we have suckled all the milk and honey from the fruits of the trees.
        To balance our unquenchable thirst to serve the self, we have been granted the seeds of unselfishness.   
        These seeds come in the form of the Children, whether they be ours or our relations or just present before our eyes.    When we look deep into a child's eyes we see the innocence of their lives, the vulnerability of their souls, the fragility of their worth.    We owe it to the children to not state our desires, but to serve theirs.   To provide for the children the safety and security we would wish upon our own children, and their Children's Children's Children.
        This is Life after Death.
        To see the value of what we do today in relation to benefiting the children three generations hence, provides us the benchmark to balance the overwhelming desire to be selfish, for selfishness ultimately is suicide.   Selfishness is a grave that serves only the bones of our body.
        Selflessness, on the other hand, is the fertilization of the future.   It gives rather takes to what can be, it nurtures the soil of human evolution with gifts that enrich rather rob the soil of nutrients.
        Children who witness our selflessness learn how to be selfless.   Those who witness our selfishness reaffirm the desire to serve the self at other's expense.   Thus, they become servants of the Beast of Terror who manages by Fear, Intimidation and Complacency, caring not about the Children's Children's Children except as fodder for his playground.

       By respecting life, not just our own, but the Life of the Children, we start to see the world through a different lens.   We start to see that we are Sentinels of Vigilance, responsible for teaching Courage, Conviction and Right Actions for the Children's Children.
         It isn't a hard task.
         It only requires One Percent more Selflessness than Selfishness.
         It requires us to realize that Selfishness is a form of death, the death of a chunk of the soul.  And, Selflessness--the thinking more of others than ourselves--resurrects us.    Renews us.
        Grant yourself Life after Death.
        Take the Pledge of Vigilance today.
        Blink and breathe yourself into Selflessness for the Children's Children's Children sake.
      
      

Mar 30---Beheading The Rights Of Terror Victims

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