August 29, 1999

Yesterday I gave free mini-massages to people.  I had the opportunity to work with a beautiful elderly person (I am being vague to honor their privacy) who set down on the chair.  As I rubbed their shoulder I found out that they were from Poland.  I said, ah, yes, I am from right next door, from Germany.  They replied, yes, I know and with that remark turned their left arm to expose its soft underside.  There branded were the numbers of a concentration camp survivor.  On the otherwise beautiful skin they stood out with the stark horrific appearance of a gray bluish faded pallor, which hinted at far worse.

My heart instantly reached out to them.  I had proudly stated where I was from, the place of my childhood memories.  Yes, those memories included bombed out buildings on my street and the terrible vibrations of its past horrors, but for the most part I had a very good childhood.  I was happy and am proud of the place and the many good things that can be found there and in the German character.  These were not the memories that were shared by this person.  I felt sad that I would in my moment of innocence and obliviousness to this person’s experience become the source of instant pain.  I had not come to give shoulder massages for that.  It was a humbling moment.

It had been a very tough day to begin with.  I was exhausted and tired beyond my capacity to easily recuperate.  The day before I had a bad headache from sheer exhaustion.  I did everything possible to be ready for working in the intimacy of touching dozens of people this day, but I did not feel ready.  A part of me wanted to run away, because I sensed it was a challenge I did not feel completely up to.  I prayed to be guided.  I wondered, whether I had made a mistake by signing up to do this today.  I had not prayed about it beforehand.  Was I out of alignment with my purpose?  I prayed to be guided and protected.  In retrospect, it all worked out perfectly.  It shook me up perfectly to promote great healing in others and myself.

After answering some questions, I asked myself how could I be here for this person?  What can I do to be most helpful?  They told me they were speaking about their experience in a positive way, to promote peace in the world.  I thought, what better to do than to be peaceful, to provide for that reality to be there with them right that very moment.

Thus I simply listened attentively, to inquire and endeavor to understand this person and what is happening for them.  Whenever I felt uncomfortable with something they were sharing, I simply took a deep breath and relaxed myself.  We had a very loving exchange and I am grateful for the opportunity it gave both of us to heal.  I say both of us, because this person was a gift from God/Life.  This person taught me, that I still had some work to do about this dark matter of human history, this incomprehensible inhumanity we humans have and still are capable of at times.

I did not realize at that time, that I had to forgive something about the holocaust, that I was hooked into its victimization process.  In part I have resented being reminded of the holocaust to the exclusion of the horrors that go on right now.  I seem to see movies about this always being shown on television around Easter time where I live.  It is as if someone attempted to say that they would not have us celebrate unless we simultaneously kept an awareness of that in us that we could not think of celebrating.

When “Schindler’s List” came out, I refused to watch it.  I did not want to spend my money on it.  I felt it was offensive in a very sophisticated way.  Here was a German portrayed in a good light and so how could Germans refuse to attend to the subject matter once again.   Would we not need to hail this as a great conciliatory gesture?  Something in my gut felt uncomfortable, as if I was being subtly coerced.  If I watch this, I want to do so, because I choose to do so.  I recognize that this is my interpretation based on observations whose cause may lie elsewhere.  I could be wrong.  What is important for me is the ability to face those realities with the uncompromising and unwavering stance of my love.  Yesterday I had that opportunity.  Today I realized its full impact.  I still had to heal to fully embrace that lovingness, that holiness.

Yesterday I realized, that for some people this experience and pain is so deep, that it is not a matter of dredging up the past again and again.  It is still with us at present, not only in the horrors humanity is still committing today, but also in the horrible legacy of the horrors of yesterday.  From that perspective, I want to listen and provide the space for healing and sharing.

I did not realize until today that I am one of those who need that space for healing as well.  No, I was not subjected to the horrors of a concentration camp victim in my current awareness.  This is not a comparison; however, I am discovering that we all suffer for what happened in the holocaust and in so many other atrocities, even if only by proxy.  Any reminder of it without opportunity for healing, resolution, and closure is a deepening of the offense and wounding of humanity.

This past week the very real possibility of biological warfare being perpetrated on us was once again brought to my attention.  I said, that I had heard of plans to quarantine the city of Phoenix.  Now, I remember that I had told the person, how this whole city could turn into one giant concentration camp, how this could be just the kind of excuse to remove the last vestiges of freedom from a people once again.  I could feel a tinge of fear finding an entrance to my heart.  Then I caught myself.

While these possibilities need to be looked at in a realistic and pragmatic way, the only way they can be successfully addressed is internally.  Yesterday I saw this concentration camp survivor still wrestling with the internal questions of how a loving God could exist where such atrocities are allowed to occur.  Also, why would they survive when so many did not?  I saw a struggle for meaning that fueled this person’s creativity and assertion of all that is beautiful and good in life.

I have heard that many survivors suffer guilt for having survived.  The horrors of such trauma are an assault on a person’s self-esteem that may stay with them long after most physical scars have disappeared.  Perhaps they will not heal in an entire lifetime.  If I can have my choice, I do not want to give the evildoers of such atrocities the satisfaction of knowing that their handiwork would have such lasting impact.

I also do not wish to allow myself to be blackmailed in my life by some engineered biological threat that portends another holocaust.  How can I do this?  When I discussed this matter last week, I stated a radical theory, that of absolute empowerment.  Whether ultimately correct or not, I find this stance the only viable alternative to eternal victimization.  If we are not the creators of our destiny, then we always face the possibility of victimization.  Even, if victimization does not occur, the mere possibility of it alone is already a process of violation.

Therefore, let me presume and say that we totally and absolutely choose our destiny.  Let me say, that in the ultimate sense I can never be a victim, because I chose everything in my life including experience of potential violation and real atrocity.  Now I can heal, because I know two things.  The potential of being violated only exists to the degree that I have chosen it for myself and is therefore not something to be feared or judged.  Secondly, if I come to experience atrocities, I chose them ultimately.  Therefore I am not being victimized ultimately.  They do not change who I am.  Even more radically, I can celebrate them as another form of expression of my divine, undying spirit.

What I am sharing here is not a template to rationalize and give someone the go ahead to abuse.  This is not the dissolution of healthy boundaries.  Instead it is the recognition that no boundaries exist for the eternal human spirit in its divine effulgence.

This is what I needed to remember for my larger embrace of love.  In the hour of my utter exhaustion I was reminded of the darkest in my human history.  Evil could hook into my being and twist my life into a grotesque aberration, a place of perennial fear and despair always looming below the surface.  Yet, it did not have to and it did not.

Instead, by looking at the dark reality of human life in this period of our evolution, I became stronger.  By facing the darkness and making it conscious, I had the opportunity for greater enlightenment.  I was able to deepen my awareness of the resilience and beauty of the human spirit.  I saw the divinity of human life, that is here now and that is its ultimate destiny.

In conclusion, I invite you to embrace the opportunity given to us by remembering our history in full.  I thank those who remind me of it, who give me the opportunity to see its magnificence.  I thank God/Life for showing me how to move beyond yesterday into the actualization of a future, where the forces of creation find a home in the fully alive heart of a balanced human spirit.  I am grateful for the divinity of a human spirit that was, is, and never really will be in question.  Thank you!