What "I" want to tell YOU!

I read a review of an avant garde (imho) choral presentation in Brooklyn, NYC by "Carmina Slovenica" of a piece titled: Toxic Psalms. The reviewer called the piece ambiguous, politically, and the artistic director said, "I just like to give a meditation on certain things for the audience, so they can decide what to feel, what they see, now they respond." My initial thought was - but where are our leaders to tell help us get to what is right and good!

I struggle with ambiguity. I wonder about responsibility and who is taking responsibility and more importantly who is shirking their responsibilties. I think of this over many realms of life and politically it is a very important question especially as I view politics as that which coordinates economics, sociological, religious, and psychological domains. Politics is the realm that all other societal realms finally gravitate to and is also within each of those realms. In other words, for example, the psychological domain has politics as it decides what goes into the " Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ". Other realms have their organizations, too, and politics within those organizations. All people are effected by the decisions of those individual realms and so those decisions are coordinated by governments via some political process such as democracy or dictationships, or monarchy (absolute or constitutional). Coordination at some point means that a community generally accepts the decisions of specialized parts of that community for all!

Who has the power to impose such decisions on everyone? When? For how long? And WHY?

Ambiguity is a difficult thing to live with, I think. SO -- I decide certain things at certain times for a while or even for ever. That is MY CHOICE.

Who can make such choices for someone else? Power can force choices on others. For a while or even for ever. For good or for bad. It is said: "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." I wonder??? - Who or what ever has absolute power? What is corruption? What is corruption to one person may be a motivating incentive (a promise by a parent to a child of a trip to Disneyland if good grades are achieved) to another, And what is ABSOLUTE? Who has absolute power? Really?

WELL -- I would suggest that via RELIGION we have a system where abolute power belongs to G-d. The problem then is who acts for G-d when G-d does not act directly? Maybe that is not a problem at all but an important point to consider. G-d will absolutely act if and as necessary and G-d will absolutely know what to do and why. All who are not G-d, which is all of us humans and other beings, do not have sufficient knowledge nor sufficient power to act for others.

SO - whenever we humans decide what we and others must do we need to remember that we absolutely do not know what is best and right to do, absolutely, and we do not have the power to accomplish all that is best and right.

THEREFORE - it behooves us to be gentle and tentative in actions. We may get it right and we may not. We may need to change course or hold our course. There are many ways think and act well and rightly yet sometimes such actions and thoughts become obsolete and even understood to be wrong.

I am not suggesting that situational ethics/actions/thinking be our way. That is potentially very ambiguous. I would suggest that we show great tolerance and acceptance to different ways of thinking and acting within a framework of a minimum of rules which protect people from harm.

Harm for not believing in G-d in some specific way will come, if it will, from G-d. Harm inflicted on "non-believers" be they Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, etc --- is NOT RIGHT! Forcing beliefs on others or punishing non-believers is NOT RIGHT. Pursuasion by logic or role-modeling is good. Peer pressure is not. Pressure is a force and peer pressure is sometimes benign but it can and does easily evolve into harsher forms of pressure.

GO GENTLE! Tolerate, Accept others for who they are. Enjoy differencs. Do not try to be like others but discover who you are. That is: WHAT "I" WANT TO TELL YOU."

(unrevised.... just flowed on 1/8/2015)