Fiction to Counter Despair
Keynote Speaker at OuterReach Conference
Sends Sad Signals About Earth's Future--
But Loyal Foes Tell Him, 'Don't Give Up Hope'
by David Federman, co-respondent-in-training
Special to the All Worlds Wired Service
Martian Metaphysician Carlton Sand Dune Marks has spent the last 20 years begging the Intergalactic Council to renew peace probes of the planet Earth. He has had to battle arch conservatives who still recall the debacle of the "Howdy Do Initiative of 1898"' sent to the gifted earth writer H.G. Wells who misinterpreted it as a death threat. Ever since, they argue--not without reason--the science fictions about Mars by Earth writers have been a steady procession of malicious imaginings hostile to peace in which our planet and its citizenry are portrayed as ruthless genocidal delinquents. Nevertheless, Marks has continued his crusade for a second peace initiative.
Last year, moderates on the Council sided with liberals and authorized funding for a peace probe feasibility study. Marks , considered by Right, Center, and Left a man of unimpeachable integrity, was designated chairman of the group. Six weeks before the Intergalactic State Fair and Country Hoe Down Celebration held every four years on a Council member planet, he asked for permission to present his findings to the assembly. Since the host planet was to be Mars, it seemed an appropriate venue for a digest of his finding. Even his affectionate enemies were open to the idea. "We need humor at these affairs," quipped Council provost Trevor Saturn Jones in granting Marks keynote speaker status for his report. "Mars has always been a bit of loner in its lunatic obsession with Earth. If that planet wasn't ready for peace overtures at the turn of its 20th century, why on Mars would they be ready for one when hubris has become that entire planet's national past time. But miracles can happen."
Miracles most decidedly didn't happen during Marks exhaustive preliminary study of earth's current rigid receptivity to peace proddings. To the contrary, Marks seemed completely dismayed by the prospects for peace on earth not just peace with it. "As you know," he told the overflow crowd at his speech,"We usually precede peace probes with waves of compassion and goassamers of friendly light. If that fails, we send beatific articulate presences on loan from Providence which take the familiar forms of beloved ancestors like Jesus or his mother Mary or Buddha (attempts to send likenesses of the prophet Muhammad are always rebuffed as blasphemy). Depending on the receptivity of the subject chosen at random for these graces, the apparitions perform various small and large wonders. While I myself have a strong distaste for crying statues, we used this very popular earthenware means repeatedly--without success. Wanting to succeed, with perhaps more zeal than was advisable, we sent the usually irrefutable graceful feminine wraiths that cure cancer by mere sighting alone. But even the Magdelena Option failed."
Marks paused here for a sip of water that turned into a deep, almost bottomless gulp, then continued. "There is no greater instrument of contact with mercy than the Kalima Whisper, which we only use in rare, desperate cases when the recipients of our probes prove immeasurably resistant. I am sorry to say that the whisper fell on deaf ears. As a consequence, I must regretfully conclude that Earth is not ready for a peace initiative at this time and I sadly withdraw my petition for permission to launch such an effort."
Questions from the crowd
Except for audible spasms of weeping from the audience, the hall fell into what psychologist call "the deep troubled silence of collective astonishment and stubborn disbelief." I have never felt such a mass silence, ready, if asked, to become a cradle to the universe's most inconsolable soul and swaddle it in ameliorative emotion. The silence grew stiller, denser, mightier--and ,with each passing second, softer. The last sniffling ceased. All was quiet verging on pre-dawn quietude. Then someone in the audience stood and asked, "Why don't we send the Great Mother Load to them the way we did Saturn during their last Great Freeze of Affection?"
Marks answered him, "You remember what happened then? Their receptors were too enfeebled by fear to go with the greatest flow of compassion ever sent to any planet in manifest creation. The mother's words were mistaken as permission to die, not live, in the name of love. Time and time again we learn that Providence has ingrained choice into the deepest folds of being and coercion to anything, even love, is inimical to choice. And choice depends on wisdom. The most we can offer, by way of peace, is the peace of wisdom regained and common and, in some cases, preponderant among peoples of consciousness. The earthlings remain inhospitable to wisdom."
The man in the audience did not sit down. Instead, he asked another question. "Why try to permeate the minds of Joe Blow and Darlene Doe? You'll never succeed with the man on the street. Why not permeate the minds of the Dali Lama and his ilk?" Marks looked at the man for some time before speaking, "The Dali Lama and his ilk already know about the inherent mothering flame and flow. We are only permitted to speak on behalf of the forces for which they speak. To do otherwise is not wise because it disturbs the unity in which we all live--whether we know it or not."
Unexpected appeals from the Right
At this point, Marks' Beloved Antagonist from the Right, Roger Non-duality Chance, rose from the bench behind the speaker and stepped in measured strides to his side at the rostrum. Marks recognized him with a collegial embrace. "With your permission, Dr. Marks, I would like to make one more appeal for the peace mission from Mars." Visibly stunned by the words of his lifelong opponent in dialectical banter, Marks assented and took Chance's place on the bench behind the rostrum.
"Fellow delegates at this OuterReach Conference, you all know me as the ostensible foe of Dr. Marks, feuding with him on just about every subject of mutual concern to us. Through the agency of frictioned reasoning, we have forced each other to refine our dearest projects and proposals on behalf of galactic welfare and sustenance of sentience. But never in all our decades of duologue have I ever seen my worthy adversary-in-name-only express the despair he has expressed today. As he knows as well as anyone, 'If you touch one strand of the web, the whole quivers.' So I stand in his place here now compelled by the laws of interactivity and inclusiveness to beg him in the name of the Great Unity to renew his efforts to penetrate the dense cloud-covered consciousness of our earth brothers and sisters."
Suddenly, Larue Bird-Lives Carter, the council's most unyielding conservative, rose from the bench and took his place by Chance's side. They shook hands, and Carter spoke. "I am moved to the deepest mirroring depths of compassion to second my comrade's motion. May I have permission to speak?" Carter nodded and sat down in Carter's place on the bench.
"Fellow followers of the way, I, too, have gazed at our brother planet and could not help but read into the maps of the cities that compose their globe a suicide note too sad to finish. Ever since H.G Wells misinterpreted our overtures of assistance as a death threat, we have had to wait for a time more conducive to the flow of universal compassion. In the past, or metaphysicians have reasoned that, as a matter of precaution, our probes be sent first and foremost to the imaginations of artists. After all, what ground has proved more fertile than imagination for an arousal of hope that at first seems an audacity and its subsequent ecstatic foretaste of benevolence? As the Dharma Lama Ding Dong, our oldest holy book says, "The first flow of God's love beats on the shores of imagination." But our dear earth brothers have grown used to storm waves and tidal lashings. So after the Wells fiasco, I feared our worlds would never greet, let alone meet. Be done with peace overtures, I argued, squander our resources on other lost causes. But now I see that such a feeling is a test, which I have failed miserably, of my own Bodhisattva vows to see all souls escorted from hell to heaven. Therefore, in the name of sacred continuance and instinctive compassion withdraw all previous, present and future opposition to the peace-salvage of earth. Our gesture must not be conditional upon success. For that is blasphemy against the consortship of soul and matter, a decision to use sacred reason to cast doubt upon the supreme spontaneity and wisdom of the blessed finger snap of this creation by the Creator. Dr. Marks, I would consider it a great honor to join you in your lab for the resumption of this OuterReach plea for peace on earth."
At this point, Carter beckoned his worthy foe to the rostrum where the two men embraced for several minutes, and Marks stepped to the rostrum. "I would be pleased to drink green tea with you and tap out probe poems to our dear earth brothers and sisters beneath the earth's nectar-sweet aethers" The audience rose in unanimous acclamation. And the meeting adjounred.
Tomorrow I'll report on Project Kali, the great effort to reverse rapid melting of the ice caps on Jupiter which endangers its population of 3 trillion ice-dependence people.
Sends Sad Signals About Earth's Future--
But Loyal Foes Tell Him, 'Don't Give Up Hope'
by David Federman, co-respondent-in-training
Special to the All Worlds Wired Service
Martian Metaphysician Carlton Sand Dune Marks has spent the last 20 years begging the Intergalactic Council to renew peace probes of the planet Earth. He has had to battle arch conservatives who still recall the debacle of the "Howdy Do Initiative of 1898"' sent to the gifted earth writer H.G. Wells who misinterpreted it as a death threat. Ever since, they argue--not without reason--the science fictions about Mars by Earth writers have been a steady procession of malicious imaginings hostile to peace in which our planet and its citizenry are portrayed as ruthless genocidal delinquents. Nevertheless, Marks has continued his crusade for a second peace initiative.
Last year, moderates on the Council sided with liberals and authorized funding for a peace probe feasibility study. Marks , considered by Right, Center, and Left a man of unimpeachable integrity, was designated chairman of the group. Six weeks before the Intergalactic State Fair and Country Hoe Down Celebration held every four years on a Council member planet, he asked for permission to present his findings to the assembly. Since the host planet was to be Mars, it seemed an appropriate venue for a digest of his finding. Even his affectionate enemies were open to the idea. "We need humor at these affairs," quipped Council provost Trevor Saturn Jones in granting Marks keynote speaker status for his report. "Mars has always been a bit of loner in its lunatic obsession with Earth. If that planet wasn't ready for peace overtures at the turn of its 20th century, why on Mars would they be ready for one when hubris has become that entire planet's national past time. But miracles can happen."
Miracles most decidedly didn't happen during Marks exhaustive preliminary study of earth's current rigid receptivity to peace proddings. To the contrary, Marks seemed completely dismayed by the prospects for peace on earth not just peace with it. "As you know," he told the overflow crowd at his speech,"We usually precede peace probes with waves of compassion and goassamers of friendly light. If that fails, we send beatific articulate presences on loan from Providence which take the familiar forms of beloved ancestors like Jesus or his mother Mary or Buddha (attempts to send likenesses of the prophet Muhammad are always rebuffed as blasphemy). Depending on the receptivity of the subject chosen at random for these graces, the apparitions perform various small and large wonders. While I myself have a strong distaste for crying statues, we used this very popular earthenware means repeatedly--without success. Wanting to succeed, with perhaps more zeal than was advisable, we sent the usually irrefutable graceful feminine wraiths that cure cancer by mere sighting alone. But even the Magdelena Option failed."
Marks paused here for a sip of water that turned into a deep, almost bottomless gulp, then continued. "There is no greater instrument of contact with mercy than the Kalima Whisper, which we only use in rare, desperate cases when the recipients of our probes prove immeasurably resistant. I am sorry to say that the whisper fell on deaf ears. As a consequence, I must regretfully conclude that Earth is not ready for a peace initiative at this time and I sadly withdraw my petition for permission to launch such an effort."
Questions from the crowd
Except for audible spasms of weeping from the audience, the hall fell into what psychologist call "the deep troubled silence of collective astonishment and stubborn disbelief." I have never felt such a mass silence, ready, if asked, to become a cradle to the universe's most inconsolable soul and swaddle it in ameliorative emotion. The silence grew stiller, denser, mightier--and ,with each passing second, softer. The last sniffling ceased. All was quiet verging on pre-dawn quietude. Then someone in the audience stood and asked, "Why don't we send the Great Mother Load to them the way we did Saturn during their last Great Freeze of Affection?"
Marks answered him, "You remember what happened then? Their receptors were too enfeebled by fear to go with the greatest flow of compassion ever sent to any planet in manifest creation. The mother's words were mistaken as permission to die, not live, in the name of love. Time and time again we learn that Providence has ingrained choice into the deepest folds of being and coercion to anything, even love, is inimical to choice. And choice depends on wisdom. The most we can offer, by way of peace, is the peace of wisdom regained and common and, in some cases, preponderant among peoples of consciousness. The earthlings remain inhospitable to wisdom."
The man in the audience did not sit down. Instead, he asked another question. "Why try to permeate the minds of Joe Blow and Darlene Doe? You'll never succeed with the man on the street. Why not permeate the minds of the Dali Lama and his ilk?" Marks looked at the man for some time before speaking, "The Dali Lama and his ilk already know about the inherent mothering flame and flow. We are only permitted to speak on behalf of the forces for which they speak. To do otherwise is not wise because it disturbs the unity in which we all live--whether we know it or not."
Unexpected appeals from the Right
At this point, Marks' Beloved Antagonist from the Right, Roger Non-duality Chance, rose from the bench behind the speaker and stepped in measured strides to his side at the rostrum. Marks recognized him with a collegial embrace. "With your permission, Dr. Marks, I would like to make one more appeal for the peace mission from Mars." Visibly stunned by the words of his lifelong opponent in dialectical banter, Marks assented and took Chance's place on the bench behind the rostrum.
"Fellow delegates at this OuterReach Conference, you all know me as the ostensible foe of Dr. Marks, feuding with him on just about every subject of mutual concern to us. Through the agency of frictioned reasoning, we have forced each other to refine our dearest projects and proposals on behalf of galactic welfare and sustenance of sentience. But never in all our decades of duologue have I ever seen my worthy adversary-in-name-only express the despair he has expressed today. As he knows as well as anyone, 'If you touch one strand of the web, the whole quivers.' So I stand in his place here now compelled by the laws of interactivity and inclusiveness to beg him in the name of the Great Unity to renew his efforts to penetrate the dense cloud-covered consciousness of our earth brothers and sisters."
Suddenly, Larue Bird-Lives Carter, the council's most unyielding conservative, rose from the bench and took his place by Chance's side. They shook hands, and Carter spoke. "I am moved to the deepest mirroring depths of compassion to second my comrade's motion. May I have permission to speak?" Carter nodded and sat down in Carter's place on the bench.
"Fellow followers of the way, I, too, have gazed at our brother planet and could not help but read into the maps of the cities that compose their globe a suicide note too sad to finish. Ever since H.G Wells misinterpreted our overtures of assistance as a death threat, we have had to wait for a time more conducive to the flow of universal compassion. In the past, or metaphysicians have reasoned that, as a matter of precaution, our probes be sent first and foremost to the imaginations of artists. After all, what ground has proved more fertile than imagination for an arousal of hope that at first seems an audacity and its subsequent ecstatic foretaste of benevolence? As the Dharma Lama Ding Dong, our oldest holy book says, "The first flow of God's love beats on the shores of imagination." But our dear earth brothers have grown used to storm waves and tidal lashings. So after the Wells fiasco, I feared our worlds would never greet, let alone meet. Be done with peace overtures, I argued, squander our resources on other lost causes. But now I see that such a feeling is a test, which I have failed miserably, of my own Bodhisattva vows to see all souls escorted from hell to heaven. Therefore, in the name of sacred continuance and instinctive compassion withdraw all previous, present and future opposition to the peace-salvage of earth. Our gesture must not be conditional upon success. For that is blasphemy against the consortship of soul and matter, a decision to use sacred reason to cast doubt upon the supreme spontaneity and wisdom of the blessed finger snap of this creation by the Creator. Dr. Marks, I would consider it a great honor to join you in your lab for the resumption of this OuterReach plea for peace on earth."
At this point, Carter beckoned his worthy foe to the rostrum where the two men embraced for several minutes, and Marks stepped to the rostrum. "I would be pleased to drink green tea with you and tap out probe poems to our dear earth brothers and sisters beneath the earth's nectar-sweet aethers" The audience rose in unanimous acclamation. And the meeting adjounred.
Tomorrow I'll report on Project Kali, the great effort to reverse rapid melting of the ice caps on Jupiter which endangers its population of 3 trillion ice-dependence people.
posted by David Federman @ 9:08 AM
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