LOVE CONQUERS ALL

There is a full moon over Castolon Peak tonight with Jupiter rising too beneath it. It is the brightest moon I’ve ever seen, it is a blinding white light in the vast expanse of darkness, but a very pleasant blinding soft, glowing white light. I can see the outline of Castolon Peak to the Northeast, and the Mexican mountain range to the Southwest of camp. I can hear the gentle flow of water gliding over the rocks of the Rio Grande near my tent. Meanwhile, children play on the other side of camp under the golden-yellow hues of the Cottonwood tree’s leaves, and the guitarist tunes his musical strings. It is a peaceful night under the stars of the universe as they engulf all around us while twinkling ever so brightly with hope. It is the kind of night that songwriter's create sheer magic of love and lovers of life. The cool, crisp chill in the air beckons goosebumps up and down my arms and legs. It is a joyous night to be alive, a night connected to the cosmos of the universe, a night to be one with Mother Nature, one with my God of peace and love. If I had to die, and depart from this gorgeous earth vessel, this is the kind of night that I would dream.

Set me free, when it is my time, to die under the stars, the light of the moon with God’s outstretched arms upon I lay myself down and my rising soul to reach the farthest star of the universe. Promise me, oh God, that I die one within nature with the dignity and freedom befitting of God’s precious human creatures. Spread my ashes under the moon, the same moon light around Castolon Peak in the great river valley of the grandest RioGrande on the shores of Mexico.

“The moon is the same moon…Know that the world of created things is like pure and limpid water in which shine the attributes of the Omnipotent One…Generation after generation have gone into the dark, but the Divine attributes are changeless and eternal,” Jalal-ud-Din Rumi, Islamic teacher and mystical poet, born in Afghanistan in 1207.

God, oh most Omnipotent, especially tonight as I gaze into your brightest moonlight, while it bounces off your comforting river and simulates a thousand points of light across the mountains of Mexico, I love you ever more than anyone or anything in all the world. Oh, the many times I’ve thanked you for giving me life, nature, and beautiful people to love. You are One so wise and made entirely of love beaming from sea to sea and mountains to valleys below. I am the luckiest man in all the world. How did I ever deserve such a lovely God as you? Before I go to sleep tonight oh precious Allah, tell me the story of the courageous and faithful boy, who lived on the Mexican border village of Santa Elena, and how through his one voice of love, he healed a world torn apart by war, violence, vengeance, hatred and pain.

Well, my dearest Scott, a boy named Jesus Ramirez grew up along the Rio Grande River in a small village around 240 inhabitants. This was the quaint farming town of Santa Elena, named after their popular patron saint. The village folk were a humble, poor, and simple people who lived off the land they tilled, irrigated, and sowed. They didn't need the trappings of money, because everything they needed to live and be happy came from My land. They grew only what they needed to feed the people of their village. They were a very close knit community of family and friends, where the elders managed the affairs of the village. The children were raised by everyone in the village because it was in the best interest of all to keep the village a healthy and viable place to live. They truly needed one another. Love surrounded these peaceful people, a great love of respect and mutual appreciation in understanding one’s higher needs above and beyond food and shelter. The villagers taught the youngsters how to behave, how to take pride in their work, and how to treat My precious creations, especially that of human life. For human life can think, create, cry, laugh, feel pain and joy, but most of all shares my Spirit within their souls, from which they shall have the opportunity of everlasting eternity in My presence.

Everything was fine in Santa Elena, until the day that violence and mayhem struck like a tornado without any warning and ripped apart the fabric of their society. It was an ugly day, as looters and marauding pirates raped and pillaged the entire villageside. Women were stripped of their meager clothing, as the men of the village watched from a distance, of their wives and daughters literally were raped, beaten, and molested repeatedly over and over again. As their stark naked bodies laid strewn all over the landscape, left out in the sun to bake and die like trash at the side of the road for javelinas to eat. Oh, the cries echoed on for hours throughout the canyon. I cried tears of compassion, my dearest child, Scott. The endless screaming of tormented and fragile humans continued. But, the violence didn’t just end with the vile, disgusting humiliation and torture of the women. The next wave of great “Northern Whites” galloped across the river on their mighty steeds to reek havoc among the young boys. Grabbing them as they tried to escape and ripping off their loincloths in view of their mother’s and sweethearts, castrating these boys like an Iowan butcher would chop pork loins. Long furrows of blood washed quickly down into the Rio Grande turning the water bright red. It was a bloodbath! Females cut, slashed and soiled for all time. Boys lying in pools of blood, gasping for one last breath of air before dying, leaving behind a village with no future, no hope for a tomorrow, no birth, only death permeates about the village. The outlaws from the North, with their ever so gallant looking blue uniforms rode on and said ever so happily; “you mongrel Indians deserved every little bit of it and more, you heathen non-Christians, you communists, you niggers, you faggots, you Jews, you Palestinians, you Muslims, you poor, poverty stricken low life illegals – you deserve to die!!! Hence, my son, Scott, the great American nightmare to hate began! Violence and hatred flourished into future generations on this dark, unholy day of the innocent’s murders, which continues boldly into today in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Colombia, Africa and Asia, and the United States, as well as many other places throughout My-created world.

Yet, deep in the Santa Elena canyon was a boy spared from the clutches of death. His name was Jesus Ramirez. He had left the village earlier that day in his dugout canoe paddling upstream towards the canyon to hunt for a mule deer to bring back to his village to celebrate his 14^th birthday. This is a day for him to prove his manhood by the hunting of one’s prey, and to sing, dance, and be joyous for life. For at the age of 14, a boy in this culture becomes circumcised, and to be married to carry on the family name and tradition within the village with his own new family to be.

As soon as Jesus could hear the distant cries and screams coming down river near his village, he paddled as fast as he could with his mule deer lying at his feet. The closer he approached the village the louder and louder those screams of sorrow echoed in his mind. It was a deafening sound, an eerie evilness about it. Canoeing closer, he saw the red of the water, thick like tomato soup. He choked as he swallowed his saliva. Images raced through his mind like the speed of light. What has happened to my family and friends, he worried outloud? “Oh, my Creator, behold my older brother of 16 years, laying naked in his own pool of blood, he’s dead.” With tears rapidly speeding down his cheeks, he embraced his brother’s lifeless shell of a body, lifting him close to his chest, he squeezed his brother’s bloody body tightly and let out a shrill of a languished cry so loud, that the leader of the great “Northern Whites” could hear him miles away at Castolon Peak.

Rage began to take hold of Jesus. Anger and revenge took a firm hold onto his heart, holding him, too, hostage of his ill-gotten feelings of evil, making him no better than the murderer’s themselves. Then, guilt gripped him, and pain like a razor blade cut through his tearful eyes. His eyes angry and hollow, like most men of today, no spring to his steps, only misery.

Hours passed by as Jesus dug a shallow grave to bury his only brother. He paused for a moment to say a brief prayer to Me, his Creator in the heavens above. “Oh, my Great Spirit, how have I forsaken you? I do not blame you, Oh Great Creator. All people have the free choice to choose between good and evil. They, the great “northern Whites” have chosen evil to be their guiding post, their god above you. You, my Creator and my brother’s Creator have spoken words that I must obey to truly free myself from the chains of bondage. I only feel anger, hatred, and pain right now. Free me of these potentially dangerous emotions. Release these feelings of anger and hatred into the clouds above, and rain down upon my heart, mind, and soul to love one’s enemies.”

“Dear Creator, as one of your great prophets once taught in the Sermon on the Mount;” “I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.”

“If you ask me God, this great prophet, among all, was very wise indeed, yet, probably mocked and belittled by yet more evil so-called “realists” or “religious” of his time. Sounds like he was heading in the right direction, the direction of love, peace and non-violence! But of course, his believers and non-believers alike, then and now pay so little attention to this greatest of all truths, the guidelines of living a moral life, a lifestyle put into action are these beatitudes. Sound advice, coming from a radical like Jesus of Nazareth.”

“Thank you for listening Great Creator of all, have mercy on the soul of my brother and family who I dearly loved as much as my own life – AMEN.”

As young Jesus Ramirez raised up his hands to the sky, he began to sing. “With my one voice, I can begin to heal the world one person at a time, by first changing my heart to spread love, not hate. I shall overcome, I shall overcome. I shall turn death into new life. I shall be married and multiply the earth with the joyous sounds of children. I shall choose not to hate! I will lift up my voice, my one voice in praise. I will sing all my days to come. They, the great “Northern Whites” may have brought fear and death into my peaceful village. But, they will never win my heart and soul, because I have hope, and love will conquer my foes. I shall keep praying for those sad, evil Americans who spread their brand of godless immorality of death to other poor, defenseless folk around the world. I can change my world by the way I live my life. No one shall steal my faith, it is the one true joy in life that no one can take away from you. No one, even the distant governments of so-called freedom, flag-waving, democratic strongholds of greedy, manipulating corporate demons can steal my faith away. Truly, Great Creator, they only have one god, and it isn’t You, it’s their money they worship! I am truly free, not them, those “Northern Whites”.

“I have conquered death with the freeing power of love! My one voice has healed the world with LOVE. I love those Americans as my very own brothers and sisters of the human race. No more violence, no more hatred, only LOVE! Love is the only reality that truly matters in all the world,” stated a wise, Jesus Ramirez, of Santa Elena, Mexico.

“Yes, you see my son, Scott, LOVE always conquers all ills of my blessed children and creations on earth and the universe. Always remember, and never forget that my Spirit of LOVE is with you daily. Please, Scott, spread My message of love to all,” said GOD.

God Bless the World!