Children Are Watching

CONTENTS

The Watchers ------------------------------------------- 1

Prisoners ----------------------------------------------- 2

Root Causes -------------------------------------------- 3

The Pain of People ------------------------------------ 4

Defining The Guilty ---------------------------------- 5

Hope for Shackled Children ------------------------- 6

From God to God -------------------------------------- 6

Risk Factors and Human Rights ------------------- 7

Flowers in The Garden ------------------------------ 8

Prayer at 9/11 ---------------------------------------- 8

Responses to 9/11 -------------------------------------- 9

Deep With-in -------------------------------------------10

Violence Breeds Violence---------------------------- 11

Stop The Madness! ----------------------------------- 12

When The State Is The Killer ---------------------- 13

Fighting in Vietnam --------------------------------- 14

Idolatry------------------------------------------------- 15

A Broken Construction ----------------------------- 16

Integration -------------------------------------------- 17

What Would You Tell Those in Charge? --------- 18

Wisdom ------------------------------------------------- 19

Squandering Induced by Social Systems -------- 20

Too Busy to Think Peace --------------------------- 21

The Gender of Gods --------------------------------- 22

A God’s Eye View ------------------------------------ 23

We Are Church -------------------------------------- 24

Discipleship ------------------------------------------ 25

To Overcome Prejudice ----------------------------- 26

Many Parts, One Body ----------------------------- 26

Who Is Jesus? ---------------------------------------- 27

People As Symbols ---------------------------------- 27

Advice from A Good Guy -------------------------- 28

On Not Dealing With Sin --------------------------- 28

Fetters and Keys -------------------------------------- 29

What Is Wrong with The World ------------------- 30

The Option of Respecting Others ----------------- 31

Our Justice System Has Gone Astray ------------ 32

No Taxation Without Representation ------------- 33

Ask The Children About Rockefeller Laws ----- 34

More Prisoners Than Farmers! ------------------- 35

Rewards for Sacrifice and The Death Penalty -- 36

Does God Believe in Prisons? --------------------- 37

Kingdom of God or Realm of Peaceful Spirit --- 38

Risk Taking -------------------------------------------- 39

A New Commandment ------------------------------ 40

Can A Leader Be Evil? ------------------------------ 41

Anti-Semitism ----------------------------------------- 41

Just War Is Outdated -------------------------------- 42

God’s Grace ------------------------------------------- 43

E-Mail as Savior ------------------------------------ 43

Remember Me Here In Jail ------------------------ 44

The Messaging of Earth ---------------------------- 45

Laws Cause Frustration ---------------------------- 46

Black Night ------------------------------------------- 47

On Right and Wrong -------------------------------- 48

Prayer Transfigures ---------------------------------- 49

On Prayer ---------------------------------------------- 50

Five Young Boys -------------------------------------- 51

TV Entertainment ------------------------------------ 52

Abuse and Restoration ------------------------------ 52

No Choir Practice ------------------------------------ 53

On Failures and Successes ------------------------- 54

Conflict as Good ------------------------------------- 55

Influencing The Distant ---------------------------- 55

Bondage------------------------------------------------ 56

Economic Justice------------------------------------- 57

On Power ---------------------------------------------- 58

War - Experience, Analyze, Judge, Decide ------ 58

The Beloved Community --------------------------- 59

God’s Realm ------------------------------------------ 60

The God We Worship -------------------------------- 61

Humans as Sacred, Humans as Humble -------- 62

A Type of Creed --------------------------------------- 63

Negotiating Peace ------------------------------------ 64

Forgive Us, Loving Spirit --------------------------- 65

Sinners of Whom I Am The Chief ----------------- 66

No Room for Forgiveness --------------------------- 67

Love Is Faster Than Light -------------------------- 68

The Good News Is Forgiveness ---------------------69

Forgiving Others -------------------------------------- 70

For The Imprisoned ---------------------------------- 71

Fighting Terrorism ----------------------------------- 72

How Could We? ----------------------------------------73

Swords to Plowshares ---------------------- back cover

The Children Are Watching

Cora E. Cypser

ISBN: 1-892063-09-3

The Children Are Watching contains poems

that protest our nation’s use of war and weaponry

in our international relationships.

Dedicated to all those

who forego the desire

to punish or retaliate

and who work

for restorative justice

and forgiveness.

The Watchers

The children of Iraq are watching

from behind the barricades.

They have trembled at the sound of planes.

They have heard the bombs bursting.

Will they be the future terrorists

filled with hidden fears and angers?

The soldiers of the United States are marching

guns ready to fire at any resistance.

They are weary and their nerves are jagged.

When they return home

will they be troubled with flashbacks?

The young of the world

are watching, acting, and reacting.

They are the future of the earth.

Who will tell them that the earth is marvelous?

Will we continue to give them gloom and doom

or can we dream up a rainbow

for them to hang onto?

Prisoners*

All people should have access

to jobs, education, health care, and housing.

They should be allowed to participate

in the government of their community.

Why do we consider some folk as less worthy?

Or is it that we find ourselves superior?

Or are we guilty of greed?

Are we afraid we will not get our share?

Recently, it was concluded that women were not chattel.

As human beings, they could vote.

Others in our communities are still denied this right.

The poor are put in prison more often than the rich.

Ex-slaves could not vote until after Lincoln.

Some states made laws to take voting rights away.

We should not allow manipulation of others

(as in prisons or as in police states)

without representation or feedback.

We must give all people a say

in the decisions of their community.

Those who are not heard become frustrated.

When we do not listen, we breed violence.

When we deny the rights of others

we plunge ourselves into self-righteousness

and become the prisoners of our ego.

When we refuse empathy to others

we wrap our hearts with chains.

*from Think on These Things by Cora E. Cypser

Root Causes

The terrorism in the world

is the result of an imbalance

between the Haves and the Have-nots.

The Haves who are a minority

are grabbing resources

although they do not own the earth.

Have-nots who are the majority

are forced into a corner.

The Haves are market-dominant minorities

who unconsciously incite

racial and ethnic hatreds

in those who are deprived of human rights

to land, to food, to education.

The world cannot exist with such imbalance.

Like a wound-down top, it totters as it spins.

The Pain of People

As a world society

we are in a well of stress and depression.

Some of us claim prosperity

exploiting the environment

using resources with abandon

acquiring cars, boats, houses

frequenting shopping plazas

having paid up health care

trusting in the military.

Others of us starve

wander as refugees

live in shelters or campsites

suffer diseases like AIDS

have little educational opportunity

undergo bombing

spend time in prison.

The great faiths emphasize

that if we treat each other kindly

we will have all we need

to live fulfilled lives.

If we share

it will be well with us.

If we do not share

we must shoulder responsibility

for the problems of the world.

Defining The Guilty

In the same manner as leaders in our culture

respond to local lawlessness

world leaders respond to terrorism.

They choose to retaliate

rather than forgive.

Our prisons punish rather than reform.

Our social system ignores root causes

and comes down heavy on the faulty.

Those laden with childhoods full of trauma

grown up with insufficient education

scuttled in channels of alcohol and drugs

find there is no funding for their problems

but only funds for long incarceration.

Who is more guilty?

Is society guilty for ignoring

the transgressor’s human rights?

Is the transgressor guiltless

because he acted out of ignorance?

Christ on the cross declared

“Forgive them, for they know not what they do!”

Hope for Shackled Children

The children are in bondage

taught to fear the future

from failures in the past.

They remain in confusion

because of others’ omissions

in guidance and encouragement.

But the quietness of God

breaks through bleak walls

breathtakingly, to guide us all.

Quite invisible to reality

love crashes through barriers

urging us from misdeeds into kindness.

The Wisdom who makes souls

is an expert in guiding souls

past trauma and despair.

From God to God

We come by way of a Creator God

and surely will return to such a haven.

It is the duty of all of us

to bring out the possibilities of godliness

that lie within.

God and humanity cling to each other

so as to become one fulfilled destiny.

Risk Factors and Human Rights

Those in the Egypts of our social systems

enduring the risk factors of:–

the violence seen on TV and in movies

the life of being children of single parents

or an outsider in a foster home

the partakers of substandard schooling

the exposure to child abuse, drugs, alcohol

these children are at heavy risk for failure.

God looked down on the weary in this Egypt

and called out— “Let them go!”

God bargains with the keepers—

“Free my sons and daughters!

Let them have hope!

Prepare them for fulfillment.

Give them an education

fit for a Dalai Lama.

Then my sons will build the earth

will heal the hurts and traumas

of those around, will guide and love

from deep beneath the scars

of fear and hatred.

My daughters, too, will sing

songs of joy and peace

giving thanks for each new day.

Give to my children

the rights I have dreamed for them.

In giving, you, too, will reap a blessing.”

Flowers in The Garden

What kind of children

are we of the United States

growing in Afghanistan––

children who fear the terror from the sky

and wince from hunger in the belly?

What kind of children

are we growing in the United States––

children who watch on TV

a rain of collateral damage

push it into their sub-conscious

deny the reality of pain and death

children who are led to believe

that bombing other countries

will keep them safe?

Prayer at 9/11

Let us never do to them

what they have done to us.

Let us not inflict on another

what infects us with trauma.

Forgive us for what we have done

to cause this conflagration.

Responses to 9/11

There was a choice made evident

at the Twin Towers Disaster

of two quite different paths to take

to stop future terrorism.

Both paths are insufficient.

Our world will never be

a place of perfect peace.

The best course we can take

is the one of least destruction.

Our leaders chose the path of most destruction.

The first choice was the way

of power and punishment.

The world was told

“What they have done to us

we will do to them twice over.”

Then fear infected us and blinded us.

Whatever power we had, we used in swift retaliation

which made our children and our soldiers

liable to becoming terrorists.

The second choice would have involved

the world in less destruction.

This choice searches for root causes

mediates just solutions for enemies

debriefs the traumatized, forgives the guilty.

Taking this path, there would have been little need

for war or bombs or landmines or suspicions

or stereotyping or confining other people.

Deep With-in

A war on terrorism

is a spasm wrought by fear.

We rage and don’t forgive.

We hold our passion to us

feeling that we are justified

yet it harms our inner being.

In our futile anger

we throw bombs around

causing damage to the innocent.

Our traumas haunt us.

We become less in our own eyes

and in the eyes of all the world.

A war on terrorism

is morally unjustifiable

because we kill

because we revenge

and there is no opponent

no object to our rage.

To achieve peace of mind

we should admit

that each of us might be a piece

of what is wrong with the world.

Violence Breeds Violence

Retaliation is not justice.

Justice is not retaliation.

Justice has something to do

with finding out why

the perpetrator did what he did.

Bombing is an archaic cruelty.

It does not solve problems

but only serves to escalate situations.

If we all respected each other

we would not need law upon law.

Our prisons reflect our ethical level

our neglect of human rights.

They reflect values of retribution and retaliation.

An ethical and non-violent world

should have ethical prisons.

Changing human behavior in prison situations

would be the start to making

a significant change in community values

that could eventually transform the world.

Stop The Madness!

If God is love––

and I do believe God is love––

then putting people in cages

is not what love is all about.

If we love our children

do we put them in cages?

If God is love––

and I do believe God is love––

then dropping bombs on foreign countries

because a leader suspicions wrong-doing

because someone has a knee-jerk reaction

leading to retaliation–

such dropping of bombs on other human beings

is not love;

it is madness.

What are we doing?

What can we be thinking?

If God is love––

and I do believe God is connected

with compassion and forgiveness––

then our actions scream insanity!

Compassion and forgiveness

seem opposite to retaliation.

Bombs kill children. Soldiers kill soldiers.

Are we a society gone insane?

When The State Is The Killer

State sanctioned killing

such as war or the death penalty

may be more immoral than a one-person murder.

When immoral acts are given the blessing

of state or church authorities

the ethics of a whole society

are undermined.

When one person kills another

in anger or greed or passion

only one person has been desecrated

and only one person has allowed

his better senses to be overcome.

But the whole society

has not accepted degradation.

Conversely, the whole society

when viewing the calamity

may have its sights set higher

and may rise in unison to condemn

such a thoughtless and spontaneous deed.

In this elevated state

the total community might also look

towards healing both the victim and offender.

Fighting in Vietnam

We did not know we were at war for a long time.

We did not know we were cutting people’s throats

or burning babies or shooting wrinkle-faced women

who refused to shed tears.

No one wanted to be the first to tell us.

We would not have believed them.

The soldiers did not want to believe it themselves.

Such a mutilation was beneath us.

We had no quarrels with anyone.

When we spoke, there was no argument.

We felt we were too good and too great

to stoop to the killing done in war.

Oh, how we deceived ourselves! We did not understand

for the longest time that we were at war.

How could a people repeat the same error?

Real Americans believe in peace, not bombs.

Idolatry

Idolatry is to worship laws, authority, and power

instead of Loving Spirit which can be found abundantly

in doing kindly deeds for friends and foes.

Idolatry is to worship words in books

that talk of ancient wars and claiming land

not hearing guides in those same books

that call for kindness and concern

for widows, orphans, wounded, and oppressed.

True worship is respect for human rights

to see the face of God in every face

to sense the Spirit guiding all the earth

to peace that transforms weapons into tools

with laws that bring fulfillment to all people.

A Broken Construction

The system needs repair.

Structures long held in place are falling down.

Should we restore the buildings

on their old foundations?

Do we retell the old pre-Bible myths

which claim Divine Right to the land

and give Divine Power to the rulers

condemning protests of the prophets?

Today the prophets cower before the kings.

The vision of democracy is blurring.

There is contempt for other nations

for their cultures and their treaties.

Where is the glue to mend the broken

the wisdom to heal the people?

Integration

God wishes

to exist

as an integral part

of you.

How did the gentle Jesus

make this thought reality?

He became the pure bread

the pure wine

with no yeast, no spoilage

no rot, no sin

the pure word

the pure thought

placed in new bottles.

If we continue

confined in our old customs

in our old ways of governance

in our old religions

there will be excessive fermentation.

The bottles will break.

New wine, new movings of spirit

can transform decaying govern