From SOSEN: The Sleeper has Awakened

I, like many people, have for a very long time been plagued by stressful dreams.  Perchance it is my affinity for science fiction that many of the dreams fall into places and situations that seem outer worldly, then at other times they are very down to earth, but not necessarily places or times that I am actually familiar with. As I now look back on many of them I find  a similarity, I’m either forced to stand to the side and watch others being treated badly or am involved in trying to help, calm or perfect a person or group that I am part of.

Tonight I woke from one of those dreams with the realization that within those dreams that I am not myself. Sometimes I am one of the affected groups or sometimes I’m one of the majority that is doing the harm  I’m seeing in my dreams. When I am on the controlling group side I feel nothing if not anger and discussed for the actions of my peers but I’m trapped by my position within the group.

Perhaps you say, that is because I am one of the disfavored members of society and because of that I feel an empathy towards all others who because of their difference are being attacked and disfranchised. But my dreams take me across this world and beyond they have always, it seems been trying to show me something from the perspective of others. those others have not been necessarily been of my race, color, creed or religion nor have I found myself in places familiar or am I just in my time.

I have sat on the councils that judged witches and demons based on twisted religious beliefs and I’ve been a member of the family’s of those who are being judged. I’m was honest member of a gypsy caravan whose members have been rounded up and sent to the death camps, and I’ve been one of the soldiers doing the rounding up. I have walked the trail of tears as a Cherokee and as a soldier, I have been a poor child and the Sheriff caught up in America’s eugenics movement. I have been a pagan and Christian in ancient Rome. How many times and how many conflicts I have been on both sides of that fence in so many different situations. I cannot begin to tell you. In every case where there has been disfranchising no matter what side I have been on I have felt the frustration, the sadness, the shame, and the anger at not being able to do anything to help those from both sides knowing that many of my peers have felt the same as I do.

Tonight it was different it was as though I had stepped outside of the people directly involved. That are the boots on the ground level of things and reached into a plane above some of the common people’s problems standing off to the side and watching not the control-e but the controllers and I’ve recognize something. The problem of human suffering does not stem from the actions of the people directly involved in the conflict it comes from the policymakers, the religious leaders, the back seat drivers, the zealots rather their reasoning is based on religion or ethnicity, color, race, money or just plain irrational dislike of another group. They are responsible for placing the hate and distrust in those under them and then turning them loose like some child’s wild windup toy that slam into the walls until they destroy themselves and other things around them.

Our founding fathers struggled with the same things as we are today where groups of people or those in power have attempted to take away basic human rights. That is why they wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They attempted to lay down moral guidelines for this country to follow.  Those guidelines can be put into simple terms even today,  All human beings have a right to live their lives as best they can with out fear of other groups, countries or governments including our own interfering in those individual freedoms. those guidelines also point out that we are free to follow our beliefs. But we cannot force our religious or personal viewpoints on to others.

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