When I think of the events we have done in the past years and their focus: violence against women, human rights abuses, censorship, violence against journalists, freedom of expression, Russia, Belarus, Congo, Chechnya, I know we have touched people to awaken to issues they have not paid much attention to in their daily comings and goings.

But lately, in watching the news, reading articles, seeing video and documentary about the state of our world I realize that each individual focus – each subject or theme we have embraced – are only residual aspects of a greater challenge.

We are loosing our humanity.

When I say ‘we’ I mean the collective ‘we.’  I mean that, as a species, we are expressing so much violence, so much self-hatred, so much destruction of ourselves and the planet that feeds, nourishes and protects us that it can only be reflective of an illness or a misalignment which is screaming out to be addressed.

There is no ‘us’ and ‘them’ in a global reality.  As much as we would like there to be.  We have left that time. We are interconnected, our actions in one country affect another, we feed each other, we clothe each other, we entertain one another and share information on a minute-to-minute basis.

And yet there is a frightening movement in the last few months toward the use of children as pawns in our self-hatred and in the darkness we have entered.  Certainly the rape of girls in Congo as a tool of war and the kidnapping and training of child soldiers has been going on for years, and now we see Nigerian girls kidnapped as a motive for terrorizing a nation, and teenagers murdered in Israel and Palestine as . . . what?  As instigations for launching rockets and air raids?  We are now using our youth as the territory of our violence.

These are our children.  These are the flowers of the miracle of Life.

There is no hope but what we make.  I see darkness all around.  But innocence – pure and true – can be nurtured to embrace a reality that I believe is the only one that will truly save humanity.

On our homepage is a question we have asked you to answer.  The question is: ‘Who Is The Enemy?’

But I will be removing that question soon and canceling that project.  Because the answer is clear and need not be explored all that deeply.

We are the enemy to our own selves.

And I do not want to engage any further in the violence of this world.  I don’t believe in it.

What I do believe in is Life.

So, as we move forward on these new programs: The GTP Creative Corps for youth and The GTP Institute for university students, we will focus on one thing.  The development of creative thinkers who will work to maintain a balance to this darkness, will seek a light to shine on our lost pathway, who will be encouraged and guided to believe in a power greater than hatred, fear, violence and the destruction of our humanity.

This will be the focus of our work.

In honor of all the innocence being destroyed as I type each. . .  one. . .  of . . . these. . .  letters.