I’m not sure if anyone is wondering whether Glenn Beck has just “played us” by voicelessly showing contrition one day and then touting a huge exposé with voice returned the next. (1)
But for me, it’d make no difference at all – in one important way. What Glenn said in his video of contrition remains a step on the road to peace and my commitment now is to take and welcome (almost) any step on the road to peace that presents itself.
Glenn’s statement of contrition was a step even if he were to abandon it a day later. And I hold him to it and welcome it whether he’s able to to stay with it or not.
Anyone who bucks a prevailing social paradigm, it seems to me, is going to be disappointed again and again. But it can’t be that prospect that stops us any longer if we’re going to go first, and first again, and first again in breaking the hypnotic spell of the prevailing social model of conflict and retribution. I think we have to prepare ourselves to watch nine disappointing results in the beginning and keep steaming ahead to reach the tenth and promising result.
If one wants to depart from a social paradigm, especially one that has been sold to us through every conceivable means by people who have their own best interests at heart and care not for the damage they bring upon society, then I think we have to have our eyes wide open that we invite encountering … well, almost anything I can think of.
Being manipulated. Being opposed. Being ridiculed. Being scammed.
Being trapped. Being parodied. Being stiffed. Being left in the lurch.
But being treated in every conceivable way need not stop us any more. It can no longer be that we frame our course and our response on the basis of what another does. That’s what got us into difficulty in the first place.
What I notice about myself and my reaction to seeing Glenn hale and hearty and engaged in showmanship of an unknown variety is that it doesn’t matter a whit whether he takes this golden opportunity and utterly throws it away. It’s our commitment to peace and forgiveness that matters.
The sight of Glenn saying to the world that he realizes that the way he was being was not a contribution will never leave me even if Glenn were to toss it aside. And it’ll inspire me to leave aside anything I was doing as well that wasn’t, or isn’t, wholesome or alive or a contribution to a world that works.
It’s action that we need, and more action, and more action – visible action, tangible action, reported action. We’re engaged in turning a global situation around and that will take persistence, a thick skin against criticism and an open heart to anyone who wants to join us in a global walk to peace, a planetary resolve to turn our situation as a human family around, right now and everywhere we see.
The person who resolves to depart from the prevailing paradigm of conflict and retribution and start on a new road to peace and forgiveness worldwide has to have faith in what Emerson said: “If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.” (1)
Footnotes
(1) “I Think We’ll See a Lot More of This in the Months Ahead,” June 12, 2013, at http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/06/i-think-well-see-a-lot-more-of-this-in-the-months-ahead/ and “Glenn Beck’s Voice is Back and He Says It’s About to Help Change the Course of History…,” June 14, 2013, at http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/06/glenn-becks-voice-is-back-and-he-says-its-about-to-help-change-the-course-of-history/.
(2) “The single man” – The person who departs from a prevailing paradigm and swims against the current. Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Source: http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/06/thick-skin-and-an-open-heart/
