1986- It's a Possibility Part 1 - John Denver

"I am one who believes in preventative measures, whether it has to do with health care or crime or war.  I would like to share with you a poem about prevention that I found in my chiropractor's office.  This is the story of "An Ambulance Down in the Valley."

T'was a dangerous cliff as they freely confessed
though to walk near its edge was so pleasant.

But over its edge had slipped a Duke,

and it fooled many a peasant.

The people said something would have to be done

but their projects did not at all tally.

Some said, "put a fence around the edge of the cliff,"

others, "an ambulance down in the valley."

The lament of the crowd was profound and loud

as their hearts overflowed with pity.

But the ambulance carried the cry of the day

as it spread to the neighboring cities.

So a collection was made to accumulate aid

and dwellers in highway and alley,

gave dollars and cents not to furnish a fence,

but an ambulance down in the valley.

For the cliff is alright if you're careful they said,

and if folks ever slip and are falling;

it's not the slipping and falling that hurts them

so much as the shock down below when they're stopping.

And so for years as these mishaps occurred

quick forth would the rescuers sally,

to pick up the victims who fell from the cliff

with the ambulance down in the valley.

Said one in his plea, it's a marvel to me

that you'd give so much greater attention

to repairing results than to curing the cause, why

you'd much better aim at prevention.

For the mischief of course should be stopped at its source;

come friends and neighbors let us rally.

It makes far better sense to rely on a fence

than an ambulance down in the valley.

He's wrong in his head the majority said.

He would end all our earnest endeavors.

He's the kind of a man that would shrink his responsible work,

but we will support it forever.

Aren't we picking up all just as fast as they fall,

and giving them care liberally.

Why a superfluous fence is of no consequence,

if the ambulance works in the valley.

Now this story seems queer as I've given it here,

but things oft occur which are stranger.

More humane we assert to repair the hurt,

than the plan of removing the danger.

The best possible course would be to safeguard the source,

and to attend to things rationally.

Yes, build up the fence and let us dispense

with this ambulance down in the valley.

I love that little story.  I wish I had written it.  For me, the poem illustrates our approach to life in this second half of the 20th century, not only as individuals, but as societal and/or political entities.  It points out that increased technological capability and scientific understanding does not necessarily (in all circumstances) improve on common sense.  Just because we can do it, doesn't mean it has to be done.  Bigger is not necessarily better, etc. 

It also brings up, for me at least, the seeming inability of our rational, scientific and technological minds to understand the lessons that nature teaches us with each passing day and every changing season; 
that in the polarity between darkness and light, there is the balance; 
that in the cycles of life and death, there is harmony; 
that in the incredible diversity of life, there is equilibrium; 
that even as there is a way, there is not one way.  
There are, in fact, many roads to Mecca.

Nature has taught us over and over again that as different as things are, they are not, and never have been, and never can be, separate.  While philosophers throughout the ages have speculated on a wholeness that religion espouses as absolute (constantly contradicting themselves in the process, I might add - the supreme being - intelligence - consciousness - has many names,) our greatest scientific minds are only beginning to fathom the connections and relationships that permeate both the physical and the metaphysical universe.

Correspondingly, we simple folks lose ourselves in the deluge of the noise created by the above discussion, taking advantage of every excuse we can to separate ourselves one from the other (whether we are American or Russian, capitalist or communist, Christian or Jew or Muslim, black or white, young or old, man or woman, conservationist or developer, rich or poor, ad nauseum), in which separation we create the rationale to negate another's experience, emotions, thought processes and ultimately their lives.  

"Anyone who tells me that my emotions or desires don't exist is in effect telling me that I don't exist," says Abraham Maslow. 
To say that what anyone of us thinks or feels is wrong or not worth thinking and feeling implies perhaps that one's life may not be worth living or at least that one is a threat to my way of thinking and feeling and living.  So say the politicians and preachers of separatism.

We forget that we are all first human beings.  
How else could we go on killing each other?  

How else can we go on living in a way which denies any other human being, man, woman or child, their life?  
How else can we go on feeding our fear, ignorance and insecurity while starving our spirit and denying our dreams and our visions?

We cannot live a lie!  
We can no longer exist in the contradiction between what we say in our words and deeds as an expression of our fear and separation, and what we hear in the cry of our hearts expressing connectedness and wholeness and the recognition that we are One.  

....to be continued.....

John Denver, Windstar Journal, Winter 1986