Why is it that certain people or governments cannot see the outrageous horrors of war? Do we need to experience it viscerally before we can admit to ourselves that it's a cowardly option? Where did we get the idea that it takes courage to do battle, to cut someone to pieces, chop off their arms and legs and faces, put little explosives in dolls to maim children, blow people up from insular igloos in the sky, never seeing the bloodshed and horror on the ground below? Why do we think it's courageous to step forward, pull out a gun and blow someone's face and identity away?

Our instincts make it easy for us, don't they, to resolve conflict by taking whatever is at hand - a club, a frozen hunk of meat or a daisy bomb and destroying the newly created "enemy," wiping them off the face of the earth, righteously denying their existence. It's easy and getting easier all the time. If a government resorts to such bullish behavior why are we so shocked when individuals resort to such barbaric methods of resolving conflict (i.e., Columbine killings)? Do we really cut ourselves off from our direct experience in order to kowtow to some belief about how to deal with an enemy? If we haven't killed someone in our lives it either means that we have repressed our violence or have expressed it in other ways.

My point is that when we encounter a potentially violent situation we either avoid it, call the police, flee or blindly jump into it. We seek comfort and security so much of the time that we would prefer to do just about anything to guarantee our comfort level, to maintain our homeland security, as it were. And of course we'd rather have someone else do our dirty work for us so we can go back to our homes and offices with the knowledge that the conflict has been resolved. It is now out of our hands and thank god there is a military to "take out" terrorists, dictators and the like so we can drive our cars, go to work, buy our fast food and listen to the latest CD and not be bothered by seeing the full loop of things. I choose to see only what I want to see, so leave me alone. I am not interested in connecting the dots!

What happened to the knowledge that courage takes place when we actually listen to the alleged "enemy" whether he or she is a soldier or a neighbor who is not behaving the way we want them to behave.

It takes an immense amount of courage to sit and feel all the feelings of disgust, frustration, anger and be watchful of the drama entering the mind and body. Sometimes it takes much effort to stand in the midst of it. Such as when your mate, for example, is yelling at you and you decide you will not react. You will not hit, cry, yell back or flee but rather stand there with all the awareness you can muster to ride the wild winds of emotional chaos.

Standing there listening and watching yourself. Trying your damnedness to be a presence of love. Demanding that you not act like Bush and Company, struggling with all your might to not be like them, not surrender to the reptilian brain that seeks to destroy the life out of them; instead, sitting there like a meditator swirling with the dynamic and explosive real live emotions.

Well sometimes sitting with the emotions works and sometimes it doesn't. But the more we practice, the more often we get a taste of what it is to love the enemy, to ease out of the rigid drama of hating someone to have enough space to embrace a different mode of being. Granted, in the moment, it becomes quite intense; and with every fiber of our being prepared to kill, it seems highly unlikely that a space can open in that volcano so that some light can enter. For me, I'm struggling with the war inside me (by the way, that's what the original meaning of jihad is all about, the war that we work on internally, spiritually). I now know there is a light, a love that I have tasted, that I try to welcome in when I find myself in that turmoil. In those moments, such a flow of grief emerges with the knowledge that I hated someone, that I wanted to kill, that I created an enemy that needed to be destroyed. Sometimes this grief simply overwhelms me. It allows me some compassion for myself for being human and for all other humans who have also wrestled with similar intense emotions. It breaks my heart to know how dark the heart can be.

And yet when the space opens and the light enters, I can see and taste and feel that power of love slowly and gently easing and dissipating the "enemy" I thought I saw in front of me. The funny thing is that they haven't necessarily changed. I have.

I wonder if in the halls of the Pentagon, the CIA or Bush and Company ever have these feelings or conversations? Are they so bent on talking about war, and its media minions going blindly along with them, obsessing over creating and maintaining an enemy no matter what country it is? Are they continually creating new bogeymen, not really an enemy but simply perpetuating political shenanigans to expand our "oiligarchy" and geopolitical empire?

At a recent Rumi film event, a woman in the audience shared a dream with us where she was responsible for taking a group of children to a safe area, away from imminent danger. As she and the children were climbing up an easy cliff she noticed that the children were going in different directions than she was. Even though she spoke strongly they refused to listen and follow her. When she got to the top of the cliff, she noticed the children were headed directly into the danger zone. And when she looked around the valleys and hills in her dream, she noticed thousands of children all headed in the same direction, directly toward the danger zone. I was physically shaken listening to her story. I thought that this indeed was the greatest healing of all, the most courageous act of all going directly into the "enemy's" hot zone.

This story reminded me of the scene in the film "Beyond Ragoon" when Aung San Suu Kyi walked slowly and peacefully through an army of eager soldiers prepared to kill her... or the scene in "Gandhi" where peace activists lined up to be beaten by British soldiers. And later her dream reminded me of the current campaign of people from around the world traveling to Baghdad to act as "human shields" in the possible war with Iraq. Perhaps it takes dark times such as these to bring out our genuine courage. Perhaps we need to act in ways that counter our comfort zone by heading directly into the "immanent danger" in order to truly heal and to be of genuine service ... since as one empire ruler once said in a tone of utter haughtiness: "If you wish to conquer a people, make them comfortable."