The Deep
What do you see?
What do you know?
What do you believe?
The surface of the ocean tells you nothing about what takes place below.
When you live on the surface, the tides are out of your control.
The waters below hide things moving there.
The sun burns to the horizon.
The gulls gossip with each other.
Above the seas, life there has no contact with what moves below.
Deep water.
To those who live deep under the surface, what takes place up top has nothing to do with their reality.
No matter how much the winds of change may blow up top, the people of the deep are not moved.
They are insulated from the critique of weather.
Life below is steady.
Predictable.
Below the seas, life there has no contact with what moves the above.
What do you see?
What do you know?
What do you believe?
The people on both sides have chained themselves to an ideology that says they are special.
They are the chosen.
They will rule over their enemies in life and after death.
They are in love with their conflict.
It fills them with purpose.
It feeds their prejudice.
And they are hungry.
How do you find a compromise between two opposing people who believe the total destruction of their opposition is required so they may live?
The thousands of children on both sides that have died have not moved them.
The destruction of their community on both sides has not moved them.
The thousands upon thousands who have died on both sides are ignored.
Only the point of contact between the two sides of the conflict has ever been addressed.
The window dressings, the easily understood issues, the things that can be whined about without touching the sea monster at the bottom of the ocean or the dragon circling in the sky.
What aspect of this conflict remains unaddressed?
What is it in the deep waters and in the sky that brings fear to the peacemakers?
Something so profound that, if talked about, would shake the foundations of society?
That which shall not be named.
God.
Religion and its structure are at the core of the conflict.
Either one is right, the other is wrong, or both sides are wrong.
And there's the rub.
The three religions of the West all claim the same spot on earth as theirs and theirs alone.
There has never been any room for compromise within these three groups.
King of the hill or ruler of nothing.
Like blind fish and birds, the faithful follow the voices of hate they were born into.
There can be no compromise with those who oppose us as rulers of humanity.
It's written in the holy books of all three faiths.
The problem is now defined, so what do we do?
We send a message of hope.
We let the people of the deep know that life is possible on the land.
We tell the people of the land that life is possible in the deep.
It's a different life than what they have known, but it is life.
We must ask them as many times as needed to understand we share this world with them.
The people on the land and the people of the deep can live together.
There can be peace only if those who live in the deep want it as much as those on the land.
Otherwise, the oceans will roll, and the sky will thunder.
The storm will continue.
Peace
Daniel J Frey aka Toby