The Secret - and war
I used to be amused at stories of Republicans in the 1930s and 40s who couldn’t bear even to mention Franklin Roosevelt’s name — calling him instead “that man in the White House.” But over the past six years I have come to understand. Everything that Mr. Mission Accomplished has touched, he has turned to lead. I do not trust him, I do not trust his advisers, I do not trust their intentions, their execution, their integrity or their ability. (Other than that I have no problem with them.)
But how, then, do I square this loathing with the law of attraction as described in The Secret?
The answer, of course, is provided by the secret itself. The Law of attraction says, what you focus on, you get more of. So, let’s apply the secret to the issue of war and peace.
We do not want an end to war. We want peace.
We do not want Israel or the Arab states to win or lose. We want them to live together in peace, and experience that peace is better for all. We want these non-Christian states to learn that the message of Jesus is realistic, not utopian.
Okay, now rephrase that away from the word “want” and toward visualization. We start with gratitude that so many people feel so passionately the sufferings of their families and their friends, and often people they don’t know. What we envision for them (for us!) is that they learn to live without fear, and, until that is possible, that they learn to live with less fear.
For it is fear that is the enemy. It is fear that produces hatred, every time. Why is America so phenomenally over-armed, if not because of fear? Yes, there are plenty of people whose rice bowl depends upon the over-militarization of America — but they would not win support from hard-pressed taxpayers in the absence of fear. I have often thought that the Cold War — whatever its other causes — was profoundly influenced by the fact that both Russia and the United States entered World War II as a result of being sneak attacked. This experience of sneak attack, and the vastly enhanced potential danger caused by the atomic bomb, raised the stakes for the participants so high that common sense had no chance against it for many years.
Today it is the so-called war on terror. We are invited to engage in a supposedly unavoidable war, perhaps for generations. That is not a future that I care to go to. Using The Secret in this context surely means visualizing not only politicians and statesmen but entire populations living in a mental world in which fear plays a continually diminishing role. As we bring down the level of fear, we automatically bring up the level of intelligence. And of course, there being only two forces in the world — love and fear — decreasing fear must — well, you figure it out.
Visualize the world overcoming fears and remembering the potential of cooperation.
Visualize people’s attitudes changing so that it becomes politically profitable to encourage peace rather than to stoke fears and hostilities.
Of course it means we have to give up our own hatreds, but perhaps that’s not too great a price to pay for a world at peace. What do you think?