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Part 3 of 3

Milan, Italy from the WEF 2005 post-partum

Back To Kansas

I want to go home. I want to go home. And where are you going? My name is Dorothy the girl said, and I am going to the Emerald City, to ask the Great Oz to send me back to Kansas. Can I come too?

And so it ends, at the top of a huge mountain on a crisp clear day, overlooking all of Davos. Like the ancient Roman gods we overlook the common world, basking in the glory of our own suns, eating at a banquet which was truly beyond all reason and comprehension. This could have been the wedding between Venus and Zeus, King Lear and Aphrodite, or Adam and Eve. At the top of this mountain in Davos, breathing in the cleanest of air, looking at the most pristine and beautiful of views here on this earth, eating the finest, richest foods in the world, with the brightest suns in the world….one feels strange. The softest pillow is a clear conscience – if so, this pillow did not feel soft to me. I could almost see the way to Africa, looking at the people starving and dying of AIDS. I could strain to see into Iraq, where chaos is unleashed and democracy is a very small flame in a strong, cold wind. I could see into Israel, where the mechancial work of peace may rip a nation apart. I could see the family of a Palestinian suicide bomber shaking their heads when they realize that what will be is what they already had years ago- so what was the point of it all? I could almost see the poor of India searching the ground for any scrap to eat. And I did see a wrinkled gypsy woman in Milan who kissed my hand and would not let it go just for giving her 5 Euros. Why were we the ones chosen to be here, to basically taste for real heaven and Utopia on earth? I felt a deep sense of despair and loss for everyone else who could not be there, who could not enjoy with us. Why couldn’t the whole world be there, together, at the top of this serene mountain and taste the dew and the honey that drips from mouth of above?

Those of us at Davos, many blessed with unusual intellectual gifts or wealth or power – we are the ones at real risk of going to hell. The view of heaven afforded at Davos is perhaps a warning to us that we must heed: you are not there yet (if there is a heaven, who knows). Look from the top of your high mountain and see the rest of the world and come down and get dirty and get into it and be part of it. All of us at Davos will one day die, rot away, and slowly be forgotten. The gates of heaven for us may be quite narrow, because if one is afforded the true power to change the world – not speak about it but some here can really do it – one must change the world for the better, and with no hesitation or delay. We need to shout and wake up those who do not see it, who are missing it. Wake up now and realize that your gifts are a curse and a burden and that your wealth is a heavy weight which will drag you into Sheol. All who have a key for the liberation of their fellow brother and sister must make haste now. You can not move at your own pace, at your own comfort. You must move at their pace, at their need. Make haste and do not believe in the illusion of Davos – it is a warning that your soul is rotting. Make haste and do not believe that a drop will suffice when a flood is required.

Why can’t we just ignore the world and live in this filtered, blinded way? Many do, and they live full and complete lives. Or do they? Can you hear your spirit coughing up its sickness at night, when it is quiet and still? Or have you trained your mind to ignore that which is unpleasent, to step over the man sleeping in a bag on the ground as you make your way to a warm restaurant. But your mind did see them, and in your mind they live, eating away at you. Someone ate at Bono’s mind – he is saving his own soul as much as he is saving Africa. His capacity is to save Africa – and there will be no rest for him until it is done. Yes, he was at Davos, but his curse is wide open for all to see. There is no rest for him, and there will not be for some time. His shoulders are big, but the burden designed for them is quite heavy.

But what is my burden? What must I do to work my way through that narrow gate, to stop the coughing and sickness of my soul? What is the burden of anyone at Davos, anyone who drank and ate and spoke and enjoyed? When one realizes the underlying, true meaning of Davos, one that possibly escapes us all, it is not to discuss and intellectualize and clap and laugh. It is for each one to measure the large weight that looms overhead. Maybe we were not in a mountain, but in a dark valley, with the rest of the world watching and wanting to lend a hand. If you help us we will save you. We are needed to save the world – but equally, if not more, we need the world to save ourselves.

Davos, like the rest of the world, is both good and evil. Those who protest against the World Economic Forum are wrong and right – and their message is mostly lost and not heard. I understand what they are saying, but no one else does. You evil powerful men – save us! The meeting is not evil, and the people are not evil. Many of those here believe that they are decent and good and even mean to be decent and good – even those you would not expect. I did see a sincere look in many eyes, a desire to help the world. The world sees those blessed with extraordinary gifts and demands in return what it has given. The accounting sheet must be balanced on all sides. The world sees beyond the veil and hears the death rattle of many souls. Do not envy the very wealthy, or the very powerful, or the very gifted. Their burden is terrible and awesome and frightening. Many, perhaps none see it, but when you glimpse it from the corner of your eye it blinds and disturbs and chills. The burden is not just on those at Davos, because it is too easy to think that. Even if some one day awake, how many more in the world are asleep, blind, unaware?

Do not protest – work to save the souls of those who were there, because they can, and should, and hopefully will, save the world. Work to open several thousand hardened hearts, because those hearts can make real what you only dream about. Shout and wake us up, not with stones, but with other means, because while devils may frolic freely in Davos, so do the saviors, and they are the same person. Understand this: those at Davos have the capacity to save and transform the world. You could taste it. Not only the capacity, but the power, Not only the power, but the mind. But the heart is weak. The heart is cold. The heart is almost empty. And the soul is feeble, sick. What is the hope? The heart is weak but there is a heart. And the soul is sick but there is a soul. The soul is sick, but there is a soul. I come away convinced that the soul is truly sick, but there is a soul, and this is the small hope for the world.

-R