Dancing on the Grave of the Enemy

This is Starhawk's latest blog from the On Faith Site from the Washington Post. I thought it was timely. Sorry I've been absent, but life has been imitating art lately.

~Kate

.http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/starhawk/

Dancing on the grave of the enemy--a human impulse, perhaps, but not one that we want to encourage if our spirituality is rooted in interconnection and compassion. Death is one aspect of the Goddess, but death in service of the regeneration of life.
Rather than rejoice, we might feel sorrow and grief--not that Osama bin Laden is dead, but that his death cannot bring back those who lost their lives in the attacks on 9-11 a decade ago, nor the hundreds of thousands who have died since. Not the lives of the young people who served in our military, nor those who perished in our attacks on Iraq and our continuing war in Afghanistan. Not the lives of the guilty who instigated violence nor the lives of the innocent who were simply its victims. His death cannot restore the limbs of the wounded nor the years lost for those wrongly imprisoned. His death cannot heal the scars of the tortured. Not Osama himself, but our own choices in response to his acts have eroded our own freedoms and undermined our commitment to justice.
We're Americans--we love underdogs but despise losers. Now, we've 'won'. Now it's time to leave the battlefield on that note of triumph and turn our attention and our resources to the needs here at home and the needs of the planet we live on. All over the Middle East, we see movements rising that reject dictators and the rule of fanatics and long for democracy. We'd best move quickly to knit up the shredded fabric of our own if we hope to serve as an example. Then, out of this saga of death and revenge, we may yet find some small measure of hope and regeneration.

By Starhawk  |  May 4, 2011; 6:59 PM ET  |