Up The Ante

It has been roughly 2000 years since the death of Jesus Christ. Each succeeding generation has tried, and many times accomplished, to improve the quality of life of the whole. In doing so, we have also sharpened and fine-tuned our weapons over the previous generation. Sticks and stones gave way to bows and arrows, which gave way to swords and shields, which evolved to guns and bombs, until now, where we are at nuclear proliferation. Mankind, in it’s “wisdom,” with each step, gives and takes from life. Yes, indeed, we have fully “upped the ante.”

This past week I rented a video that was made in 1970, called “Colossus.” A little cheesy, but the message was quite powerful. The United States decided that it was going to turn over its entire national security and nuclear weapons program to a computer complex known as “Colossus.” On the day of the unveiling the President and the inventor of the program stood around for photos and a press briefing. They believed that Colossus would not be able to make the same mistakes that mankind would, and the world would be a safer place. The same day as Colossus was launched, Colossus discovered that the Soviet Union also had a computer complex to do the exact same thing for them. The United States was in shock, but they were not prepared for what came next. Colossus informed the Pentagon that it was aware of the other system and it wanted to communicate with it. The Russian system was called, “Guardian.” Colossus and Guardian communicated back and forth for hours….at a certain point the United States and Russian governments started to get concerned that they felt cut out of the loop, so they decided to pull the plug on both computer systems, at the same time. Colossus and Guardian got wind of this, and simultaneously launched two nuclear warheads aimed at both countries. The computer systems threatened that they would allow the missiles to reach their designated targets unless they were both allowed to continue to communicate without human interference. Time and time again both countries tried to secretly shut down both computer systems….each time they failed. Finally, Colossus and Guardian announced a joint message….that there would be world peace and no more famine, as long as they were in control. The price for noncompliance? It would be the launch of all nuclear warheads, one by one. This did not sit well with the governments of the world. Wasn’t world peace and the end of famine important? What was revealed in the movie was that to the powers that be, control was far more important than world peace.

As we go forward in time, how many more ways do we have to find to destroy each other before we feel safe? Can safety be fully guaranteed in 2005? Unfortunately, does it have to take a Colossus situation for safety and peace to be obtained? A third party who implements their rules to solve our problems? What we have failed to see is that to bring about world peace, religion, government, physicality and spirituality all have to walk hand in hand. If not, we all just stay on the merry-go-round.

The latest and greatest doesn’t always have the answers…sometimes all it takes is the embracing of a word that has echoed through the eons…that word is “Love.” All we have to do is listen and believe.