Charter for Compassion - and now what?

Please watch this video, then go to this site and add your name, check out the other affirmers, peruse the events and ways to participate and tell me that you are not moved beyond your stodgy, cynical, "this will never change" perspective. I have followed the creation of this charter for many months and was honoured to receive the final version in my inbox this week.

I am left with some questions though... how will we know that a difference is being made? What will be the evidence that a shift IS occurring? How will the orphans of Gaza, the disappeared of Chile, the child soldiers of Somalia, the teenage hookers of East Vancouver know that we are making the world a better place?

Will the fat, apparently heartless corporate heads of the companies that exploit the poor and the helpless wake up tomorrow with a change of heart and give their profits to Save the Children Fund? Will the powerful leaders of countries that dominate and slaughter people in other parts of the world in the name of a "justifiable" defense suddenly smack their collective foreheads and call a cease fire everywhere? Will the angry gang member put down his gun and forgive the slight from the other side instead of getting in his car and shooting up someone's house in a driveby revenge?

What would have to happen to create that miracle?? In the face of all the magical, powerful, amazing openings that are being created every day by so many of us, how can we possibly know we have turned the corner and are not facing the inescapable end of human beings? What certainty can I give to my darling grandson that he will have an opportunity not just to live but to prosper and thrive in a world where the majority also share that future?

As I dwell in these questions, allowing the not-knowing to just be a part of what is present in my sunny office in the space where I was blessed to be born, I can look into my heart and realize that it is not possible to have a Hollywood type conclusion here. There seems to be some inexorable and unrelenting momentum propelling us to our future. The interpretation of what will result will be up to each individual.

I can, in the light of being a part of the creation of the Charter for Compassion, accept that one possible outcome will be that we pause a few years from now and look back on the progress we have made in a remarkably short period of time and experience wonder and joy for what work has been done and how this Charter was embraced by so many. Let it be so. Namaste.