Re: Letter of support for AWSC from Rabbi Michael Lerner
To whom it may concern:
Sometimes the words are different but the heart’s intent is the same.
The Strategy of Generosity recently launched by the Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives (info at http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/article.php?story=20070228183252814 ) calls for a shift in how we think about our own security, challenging the notion that the only realistic way to be safe is to dominate and control the rest of the world. The Strategy of Generosity commits us to reestablishing trust and hope among the world’s peoples by working in solidarity with them to improve life for all people and to heal the planet itself. Working together to eliminate, once and for all, world poverty, and to address the environmental crisis, will break the cycle of mistrust, fear, war and destruction presently imperiling all of us.
Those of us in the spiritual community know that all life is interdependent and that our individual and societal well-being depends on the well-being of everyone else on the planet. We need a mass movement to advance this consciousness.
Consequently, it was a serendipitous find when a friend recommended I contact Dwayne Hunn, Executive Director of People’s Lobby Inc. regarding their citizen-initiated American World Service Corps (AWSC) Congressional proposals. Their AWSC congressional proposals, available on their website www.WorldServiceCorps.us, call upon Congress to build and deploy a peaceful productive volunteer army that can spread the Strategy of Generosity at home and abroad. As proposed, this new peace and justice force will spread acts of kindness that lay the foundations for a Global Marshall Plan.
Many of our spiritual efforts are uphill battles. Implementing and deploying the AWSC is an uphill political battle that provides dramatic spiritual wins. If enacted in this Congress, the AWSC legislation will be among the most significant legislation passed in decades. It deploys a peaceful army that eliminates the need for war by containing and erasing terror, poverty, and ignorance through acts of love and kindness. Even if the legislation is not immediately enacted, however, the debate it engenders will provide a wonderful opportunity to discuss our vision for a world that operates on compassion and generosity rather than aggression and self-protectiveness. Hundreds of thousands of people will be exposed to ideas they have been longing to hear. Therefore, I am asking all of you who support our Strategy of Generosity and Global Marshall Plan http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/article.php?story=20070226095019665 to also help introduce and implement the AWSC Congressional proposals. Sign the AWSC on-line petition
http://www.worldservicecorps.us/sign_the_petition.htm. Then call 866-220-0044 and ask your representatives to introduce and cosponsor the AWSC proposal in the House and Senate, and find other ways to help http://www.worldservicecorps.us/how_to_help.htm.
The world is spiraling so rapidly downhill that it can’t wait for us to exhibit the generosity and caring that having a million American World Service Corps service volunteers serving annually can do to rebuild our world.
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Tikkun Magazine, Editor
Network of Spiritual Progreessive, Executive Director