PREFACE

We’re All Alone in This Together

   Deep within the American Dream, down the back alley of our conscience, there lives another side to our specie: The Great American Nightmare. It is intricately woven from the fibers of abused kids, over-whelmed parents, directionless runaways, physically and emotionally battered mates who believe their abusers shall one day transform into Prince or Princess Charming. It comprises adults trapped into lives bequeathed to them by guilt-wielding parents, plus angry and jealous people not understanding the source of their hostility, nor how to dissipate that negativity.

   The Great American Nightmare also holds the hungry, the homeless and, significantly, those living in the Land of Plenty who do not believe they merit a personal scrap of hope.

   The Nightmare is real. Very real. Perhaps that's why we're so tempted to avoid it, like a bright lit mirror, as it highlights the flaws within our specie. Flaws we don't want to see. Flaws we could heal if we chose to recognize their existence and get actively involved with creating their cures — not only for others, but for curing the emotional cancers so many of us carry without noticing the negative affect they have on our life supporting spirits.

   Throughout recent years, there's been an incredible awakening within people from all parts of our world. People are expressing, and acting upon, our need as a specie to co-operate with one another so as to improve the quality of life for our Children, the planet, each other and ourselves.

   We are becoming more aware of the spiritual need within us all to work together to help one another as a family. We are beginning to recognize we all matter to the whole. That We Are All Alone In This Together.

   In this awakening we are becoming involved in the Giving Quest toward where and how we can participate.

   I recall way back when, volunteer work was thought to be the pastime for rich and bored women. Martyrs. Semi-saints. Or, over zealous kids joining the Peace Corp who had not learned the “value” of materiality.

MEANING:

Volunteering was the other guy, or gal's, job.

   Some even called it a cop-out for folks who couldn't get a real paying job. Certainly not the Game Plan for successful people. Unless, perhaps, they needed a tax deduction. Or, in their Golden Years, they wanted to be remembered for some grand donation. Getting involved did not have an image of simply: The Right Thing To Do.

   Possibly, the New Age has something to do with people actively understanding our need to participate. To behave as a global family rather than as strangers and born enemies. To cancel the idea of life being a Competitive Sport in favor of living it as a Cooperative Effort.

   The New Age is not outside of us. We are the New Age. Globally, more of us are taking responsibility for the quality of life as we live it, and as we shall be leaving it for the kids.

   True, our spirit of empathizing and working together as a whole is most publicized in times of disaster. As in California fires & earthquakes, the Midwest floods, assassinations of beloved public figures, and especially The 911 Terror Attack. As witnessed by the world & each of us, disasters always cause our global & intimate hearts to pulsate in unity. I sense that is because deep in our spirit we all desire to be One.

   Stress and crisis brings out the best in us, it dissolves the barriers that fear & ego create, and links our hearts for common goals. Crisis, from war to a kid trapped in a shaft, gives us direction. Crisis quickens our spirits to unify us.

   Unfortunately, massive shock waves often have to be set off for us to notice a crisis pulsating in our own backyards.

   Sure, it's easy to get caught up in our daily personal jobs of life maintenance. Of commuting. Of holding a job we may not even like. Of paying bills. Of running errands. Of doing housework. Of getting meals on the table. Of raising our own kids. And, so on. And, so on. And, so on.

   Tunnel vision can so quietly creep into our spirits that we lose sight of our capacity for giving and living. And when trapped in that narrow tunnel, pleas for help from our community become annoyances rather than viewed as opportunities for growth — spiritually and humanitarianly.

   We hear pleas for us to help abused, abandoned and neglected kids and too often we write it off as our neighbor's cause, or the Government's duty, or poor people's problem. Thus, we deny our ability to be part of the solution by failing to overview the totality of the problem. As well as the ripple affects of abuse unto our personal lives. Our kids' lives. Our global future.

   We get so caught up in keeping a handle on our own daily struggles that we forget:

   We forget that we, as individuals, can make a difference. That we matter. That we all have valuable contributions ready to be served. We forget how good it feels to give.

   But, when we choose to rise above the tunnel our daily grinds can imprison us within, our lives expand.

   Though we may not wish to take responsibility for how we, via omission or commission, may be contributing to our world problems of hunger, abuse, homelessness, pollution, and the many plights escalating on our planet, does that in turn also grant us the right to rationalize that we cannot be part of the solution?

   I feel we all have something of worth to contribute. What it is and how we do it is our choice. As it is our option to either shut our eyes and make the nightmares on our planet the other guy's burden, or open our eyes and hearts and contribute to the answers. It's always our choice.

   Indeed, many of us have turned off our community-giving- energies through justified skepticism of where our donations are truly going — which too often is into the private pockets of the administrators for charities claiming to have the public's best interests at heart.

   But just because the local Italian restaurant serves lousy lasagna does that mean we can't cook our own pasta? Just because our ship hasn't come in yet, does that mean we can't row out to meet it? Just because Society and Tradition hasn't created foolproof ways for us to serve, does that mean we can't invent our own? Just because our skepticism with charities is valid does that mean the need for whatever we can contribute does not continue to cry out for our active involvement? Heavens, no!

   Nothing monumental may ever get done by one single person. But it can be begun by one single person. And that one person can be you, as well as me.

   As with this book, it's simply my personal contribution toward expanding awareness of abuse, its after-shocks and sharing my street savvy solutions for Wait loss … as in Waiting for life to be alive for us.

   Throughout my writing of this journal, the abuse issue surfaced during many conversations.

   My openness encouraged others to open up, thus showing me the topic was greater than I ever imagined.

   People who had never revealed the depths of their past anguish suddenly felt free to discuss it with me. They revealed the kidhood selves that were intimidating them from purging their hurts for so many years.

   I learned that by unlocking my closet of caustic memories, by revealing how my past had continued to handicap my cur-rent reality, and by sharing the savvy I activated to break the ties that blind, I could provide a comfort for others to unlock and clean out their own closets and begin repacking their own Hope Chests.

   There's a tremendous freedom in discovering we are not as alone as we nightmare. And, in knowing the abuse we endured was real and widespread — not something we deserved or need to hold on to like a toxic teddy bear. Nor something we had to cover for, as if we had deserved it.

   Curious. Though I began thinking my journal of abuse would be limited to children, both terms rapidly swelled to show me that with Abuse, money is no object — nor is race, religion, age or sex.

   It includes: Specie Abuse through bigotry, chauvinistic and monetary snobbery. Abuse of one's own potential because of our fears. Abuse of God via profiting prophets. Abuse of the needy via ulteriorly motivated politicians and many charities' flare for creative bookkeeping.

   Abuse has permeated so many facets of our lives, and has all been backed by Tradition. Abuse is so vast, that in observing it, I was nearly overwhelmed — until I realized it melted down to my original thought: Child Abuse.

   The abuse our specie chooses to commit against itself is indeed the ultimate form of Child Abuse when we consider our spiritual parent is God.

MEANING:

We are all God's children.

   Abuse another Spiritual Sibling, and we abuse ourselves.

   I hope that by sharing the personal observations within my journal, observations drawn from my on-the-job experience, others may relate and possibly feel urged to explore the influences that have sculpted their past and present. Influences that may still be denying them full expression of potential, or guilt-free happiness and love.

   Hey! As time spent, it beats a kick in the kazoo.

Copyright © 2004 by Krystiahn