One of my favorite “jobs” was as a volunteer for a UN NGO (United Nations
Non-Governmental Organization) for youth (15-28 years of age) with their
own peace projects in their own countries. We attended a Switzerland
conference for world leaders for peace, where the closing keynoter was
James O’Dea. Attendees were buzzing about him reverently, and I was eager
to meet this dynamo of world activism. SURPRISE. He was a quiet – almost
withdrawn – mild mannered man of medium stature. I felt no energy from
him.
When I read his book, I “got it”. He was in full PTSD (post traumatic stress
syndrome) from his years in service to consciousness. What an AHA – PTSD
from positive activism.
O’Dea begins his book with
Activists and mystics are pioneers and adventurers. They leave the
safer territory of comforting spirituality and charitable service and
venture to the edges of personal and social transformation. They have
a degree of longing and passion that makes some people
uncomfortable. They have an unsettling degree of intensity. They ache
for breakthroughs. They destabilize normality. They rock the boat of
acceptability.
REFLECT:
Have you known / experienced a mystic activist?
Are you one?
Would you aspire to be one?
Why or why not?
O’Dea chronicles his life through the twin lens of mystic and activist. During
childhood, he lived at the seaside south of Dublin, Ireland. As long as he was
home for meals, he was free to roam. He was wild enough to rush at bulls,
and meditative enough to float in the ocean like an astronaut in space.
After his first communion in the Catholic Church, while serving as an altar
boy, he turned to the congregation and blessed them. He was informed he
could not give blessings until he was a priest, so he determined to be one.
But as he learned of the concept of eternal Hell, his faith wavered. He
declared to God: “I can’t believe in You if some people are going to be
tortured for all eternity”. A quarter century later, still unable to bear the idea
of torture, he became the Washington DC Director of Amnesty International.
O’Dea’s activism began in school where he stood up to bullies and bullying,
and he was dubbed a “moral firebrand”. When the family moved to London,
his activism expanded to volunteering for Task Force, an organization to
provide old people help with chores. Seeing the huge problems involved, he
organized other teens to go house-to-house, identifying those who needed
help. This got media attention, and he was named Teenager the Year for
Southeast London. Put in the spotlight, he learned he had the voice to speak
to power. That began his path seeking “the helper’s high”, and getting on a
“high horse”.
His life journey continued from teaching in Turkey during intense political
violence to working in Lebanon during a war and slaughter and being
attacked and knifed himself. He chronicles his journey and concludes with,”It
is the ultimate test for the activist to stay radically open.” And to do this, he
turned to spirituality / mysticism.
Signing up for a month-long course in the basics of Buddhism, meditation
and chanting, he had mystical experiences. He stated, “The fire in my heart
burned through my superficiality and arrogance, It burned white hot. This
was the conscious communion with the sacred that my soul had been
longing for.”
O’Dea worked at Amnesty International for a decade, while human rights
activism came of age. The organization made leaps and bounds in telling the
stories of officially sanctioned torture and murder, believing they could end
those practices and prosecute the perpetrators. The Conspiracy of Hope was
launched with widespread marketing strategies, and there were dramatic
milestones of progress. Yet there was genocide in Rwanda, the Iraqi invasion
of Kuwait and subsequent war with the US, war is Bosnia, Slovenia, Croatia
and Kosovo, the suppression of the first intifada against Israeli occupation,
insurgencies and atrocities in Latin America, repression in the Middle East,
and gross human rights violations and systemic abuse in many countries.
It was almost soul destroying to report on ethnic killings, looming
massacres and inevitable genocide and see no response.
It was equally disheartening to learn the politics of it, and how the issues
become a piece on a chessboard in a game for power. For instance, when
word got out that a report on Saddam Hussein’s massive human rights
violations was being compiled for the United Nations, O’Dea was pressured
to release a copy to the White House. President Bush read it (Barbara found
it too graphic and sickening and could not read it) and then printed his own
copies, despite insistence it did not belong to him / the US. Those copies
were used to justify the Operation Desert Storm invasion four months later.
After leaving Amnesty International in soul level exhaustion, O’Dea was
recruited to lead the SEVA Foundation, and then IONS, the Institute of Noetic
Sciences. Currently, he teaches peace building in 30 countries and mentors
emerging leaders.
While O’Dea doesn’t give advice, he offers wisdom from his vast experience.
The hammer WILL fall: our faith in ourselves or our faith in others gets
tested – even severely tested. For the activist who stays the distance,
there will be some level of heartbreak and despair. Step far enough
into the world’s injustices, cruelty, and stark brutality, and they will
hammer away at your idealism. They will even shatter your dreams of
being an effective agent of change.
However, if your visions are rooted in your heart, when the heartbreak
comes you will feel pain, loss and deep deprivation, but it will not be
the end of the story. It will be the beginning of a sacred transformation.
APPLY:
Examine your values – or look to conscious organizations – for a vision that
has heart and meaning for you.
Visualize it it in your heart.
Take one action a month to support the vision.
The Conscious Activist: Where Activism Meets Mysticism, James O’Dea,
Watkins, 2014.
