International Day of Ky
We honor the dead in so many ways in our diverse cultures, and yet our honors seem always restricted to our own kind. What is to prevent us from creating an International Day of Commemoration, not mourning, for all our collective ancestors - our mixed blessing - in the truest sense of the term? It could be an International Day of Ky: remembrance of the past; gratitude for the present; and, positing a commitment for a mutually-shared future.
I write this and then start to think of the religiously-driven border conflict currently raging between India and Pakistan; each flexing its atomic muscles and posturing before the world. It seems that for every nation that decries this - meaning those already bulging with nuclear biceps - there are those who sneak an envious glance, wishing they too could poise on the brink of war and pose before their enemies of the moment. It seems so very much evil has evolved from religious and quasi-religious disagreements. (Perhaps some of the children's folktales I continually want to pursue should be dressed in such a manner as to uncover this corrosive self-centeredness.) I pause to contemplate.
--Richard D. Hartwell