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THE FIRE THAT BURNS: The current crisis in Egypt
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The fire that burns is the unwavering desire, growing stronger each day, for each voice to be heard, each life to be lived to the fullest, each human being to be given the chance to live according to their own understanding of what life is about.
The fire that burns is the yearning for both political and personal freedom that is intensifying now, in the presence of increased light, that will not settle for anything less than personal dignity, expressed in the right to choose and in the equality of men and women before God.
All that is less than this is being consumed by this growing fire, this yearning toward democratic ideals which allow the greatest dignity and fullest expression to the life of each individual. What cannot be determined is how such ideals will ultimately express themselves – with what new structures of government or of society they will seek to clothe themselves. And yet what is visible now is the rejection of what stands in the way of dignity, of what compromises freedom.
This new wave of energy and motivation involves a quickening of the heart that will not accept less than what the human self feels is its inalienable right. It is a calling to the complete expression of the right to equality, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
There are some who continue to propose that human freedom can be best achieved by something which, in the interim, appears as un-freedom - as limitation of one’s right to choose. Such an argument which states that the end justifies the means is no longer acceptable to the heart that pursues its own right to live. It cannot accept such a premise, even as a temporary measure, but requires the means for men and women everywhere to choose their own destiny.
In Egypt today, we see among many who are seeking change, the expression of that inner flame, that ‘fire that burns’ that will not accept compromises or false assurances that things will be better later on, but that seeks a direct expression of human respect and government by the people. Not all who are in protest represent this ideal, but many do. And throughout the Arab world there are brothers and sisters who are also being enlivened by the flame of their heart's truth.
This is the fire that burns, and its flame is growing stronger in every human heart. For each human heart seeks to live a life in freedom, a life of self-respect, dignity, and the right to choose its own destiny. May the world awaken to these values of the heart, and may their flame burn away the dross of what remains of repression, indifference that serves the few at the expense of the many, and limitations of belief which create inequality among peoples. May the values of the heart live now in full measure according to the principles with which God has created each heart, and by which society is meant to live.
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