Your not being clear on what the terrorists wanted says a lot, too. Even in real life, it’s not important what the terrorists want, because what they want isn’t “stuff”. It was just about figuring out how to make him recognize you as human and doing the same for him.

And I echo your sentiment about Haiti. Why do you suppose so many people are still suffering from hunger and dehydration while a seemingly endless amount of food & water sits in trucks and, worse yet, are driven out to be distributed, then packed back up & driven away because the people haven’t filled out the “proper paperwork”?

There’s no profit in saving poor people. See, if more poor people die now, that’s fewer Haitians to have to build housing for later. And this “sustainable future for Haiti” everyone is talking about is another tourist infested tropical resort playground where the wealthy can vacation and spend their disposable income. Cynical? Yep. True? After Katrina and now Haiti, I have no evidence to the contrary.

I sure know how to leave a blog comment on a positive note, don’t I? Sorry about that…

“You see, Kim, you have an innate understanding that building rapport and finding common ground – even with the people who appear to outwardly and blatantly despise you – is part of the enlightened human experience. It’s how we move past our differences in belief & ideology and evolve as human beings.”

I’ve always been that way even as a child. I just think people should be able to get along and find it confusing when faced with someone who is hell bent on hating at any cost.

Still, the only time I’m aware of showing courage is when defending my kids. Defending me is another matter, LOL

My friend Frank asked how I felt after the dream. I’d forgotten that this is an important part of dreaming, especially in a learning situation or when the mind may be acting out a situation. I wanted to go back to my captor, in his country, because my own country is blind to humanity unless it benefits the government somehow. I have no doubt even the aid to Haiti has some strings attached to it.

In the dream, it was never clear what the terrorists wanted.I don’t think that was important. I think my actions, his actions and my feelings were where my lessons were.

Still amazed at how so not a dream this felt like. I spent the day emotionally recovering from the terror and grief as if I really experienced it in real life. And, of course, people judge a situation like this one and call the person mental

I have, both in waking and sleeping dream states, found myself in similar situations. I attribute it to my “what would I do if…” tendency to play out and prepare for any scenario I might face in life. And I believe this “dream” of yours says more about your understanding of human psychology and propensity to put yourself in someone else’s shoes than it does anything else.

You see, Kim, you have an innate understanding that building rapport and finding common ground – even with the people who appear to outwardly and blatantly despise you – is part of the enlightened human experience. It’s how we move past our differences in belief & ideology and evolve as human beings. I believe you would have reached out, had you been given the opportunity to do so. It’s only the existence of the opportunity that I would question in this scenario.

At the crux of this is a larger lesson that the powers that be around the world seem never to have learned. When we show our enemies that we’re people, when we genuinely try to understand their perspective and clearly express an interest in who they are, what they believe, why they believe it and that, most of all, that their right to believe is no more or less their right than it is ours, we become human beings.

The Bin Ladens, Al Quedas, Cheneys and Bush Doctrine supporters of the world don’t believe all the world’s citizens have the ability, capacity, or even right, to be treated as human beings. It’s that disconnect between their own humanity and the perceived inhumanity of some that gives them license to rid the world of those they see as expendable infidels, rather than being forced to recognize and accept that they are killing fellow human beings.

Once you became human to your captor, he couldn’t accept harm coming to you when he had the power to stop it. People in this country and around the world hold hatred in their hearts for Muslims because all they choose to see are the Jihadists. Extremists hate Americans because of what they see of us. They don’t see you. They don’t see me. They see the “We’re #1″, “Bring It On”, “You guys better act according to our social norms, or else…” blustering and repeated invasions of their nations.

They take away from that chest-thumping that every American believes all other countries to be inferior, that every American would blow them off the face of the Earth on a whim and that every American is happy with our role as the self-appointed police of the world.

I can only hope that one day everyone, not just in the United States – but everywhere, will stop believing, “Uh-oh, they’re different. And that difference poses some kind of threat to me, so they must be destroyed…” Imagine the kind of world that would be.