Rimrock
New User
Registered: May 2006
Post Number: 1
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| Prologue
A Letter From John
The following is a letter from John written to you. He had written this letter as his Message To The Next Civilization and given it to the World Federalist Association. It is what he most wanted to communicate to those living now and those of a future era, to those who will shape what will happen on Earth in years to come, long after his passing. Courtesy of the WFA, Johns letter:
Our civilization has developed to its present perilous condition out of the actions of human beings, not out of uncontrolled vicissitudes of natural forces. Yet we cannot excuse ourselves by claiming ignorance or a lack of understanding. Our failure has not been one of the mind, but rather one of the spirit. It is not what we have not known that has been our downfall; it has been our unwillingness to live our lives out of what we do know.
This is not a philosophical perspective for me but a relatively simple, straightforward conclusion based on my observations of the countless people I have the opportunity to meet. When I watch parents relate to their children, it seems to me that it tells the whole story. We teach our children to develop restraint and judgment, pointing out that it is not wise to use up something all at one time or there will not be any left for later. We tell them it is important not to destroy things they play with, so they will have them to play with later. We develop in them the capacity to share, so what seemed too little becomes enough for all. We observe to them that aggressive solutions to problems are only temporary since they ultimately produce retaliation, and that cooperation lasts forever.
We could not teach our children if we did not in fact know ourselves. Yet, we relate to our world, to our environment and to our resources, as if we did not have the benefit of our own instruction. We interact with each other as if we did not understand that the only thing that works among us is love and understanding.
We justify instructing children by saying they can only relate to what is immediate and obvious. Yet we act as adults as if that is all we ourselves could perceive. As human beings we have the most effective tool of nature; we have a mind that is able to see beyond the obvious, even beyond itself. Still we live as if we were organisms totally controlled by our basest impulses and our most petty thoughts.
For all its history, humanity has lived in the world as if the survival of each of us depended on our getting what we needed and keeping others from having it. It is clear now that the survival of each of us as individuals depends on our sharing with each other. If resources are limited, my survival is assured only to the degree that I provide for you and me, not to the extent that I take for me and mine and deprive you. This, too, we have in fact always known. We have done ourselves the most damaging disservice by not treating this truth as a simple aspect of reality, but rather as a divine dictum that we could not discover, but only follow.
That which reflects the highest levels of our knowing and the most genuine depths of our loving we have pretended does not exist in ourselves, but must be obtained from an externalized and personified God. All that is God, all that we need to know to have civilization work is within each of us. We need only be true to what we know and who we are.
Sincerely,
John Denver |
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People of the World: North America
Ecology
Denver, John - Web Guide
John Denver