When I hear of cities and organizations boycotting Arizona and the proposed boycotts of BP, I am reminded of the stories of ancient communities where when someone in the community commits a serious offense against someone or the entire community--- the community comes together to shower the offender with love and support out of an awareness of what is truly needed. It makes me think of all the people in any community who commit some real or imagined offense against the community or some segment of the community or even some individual in the community.
Here are some examples: A young scared teenage girl who elects to have an abortion, anyone in the community who gets a DUI or gets some other drug charge, someone in the community who is convicted of prostitution, someone in the community who is brutally and repeatedly raped at a very young age and grows up to become an adult child molester. What if our response to all of these people was, "We are going to boycott you!"
Of course I believe the same principle applies to what we also believe are the most serious and terrible crimes a human being can commit.
We seem to live in a boycotting mentality. In fact, the way America and many other country's deal with criminals is to essentially say, "we are now going to boycott you." And then how the "criminal" is treated is basically a fulfillment of that promise. What we currently do in this world is to boycott, shutout, disconnect from people who get caught in some offense to the community, particularly if they do not have the resources, which usually means "the money" to stave off the boycott. What if we did what some of those ancient cultures did? What would be the result?
Sage Mahosadha
© Raven/Sage Mahosadha
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